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A TEXT-BOOK 



IN THE 



H HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



BY 



PAUL MONROE, Ph.D. 

PROFESSOR IN THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION, TEACHERS COLLEGE 

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 

AUTHOR Or "SOURCE BOOK IN THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION FOR THE 

GREEK AND ROMAN PERIOD," OF "THOMAS PLATTER AND 

THE EDUCATIONAL RENAISSANCE OF THE 

SIXTEENTH CENTURY," ETC. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LOl^JDON : MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 
191 1 
t All rights reserved 



Copyright, 1905, 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1905. Reprintluf 
October, 1905 ; February, November, 1906 : February, 1907 ; Febru ry, 
1908; January, igog ; January, 1910; October, 1910 ; January, 1911 ■ 
September, 1911. 



NottoooH ^KSB 

J. S. Cashing & Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 

Korwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



^> 



TO 

MISS GRACE HOADLEY DODGE 



PREFACE 

Professedly a text-book, this volume, while not pretend- 
ing to be an exhaustive history of the subject, aims to give 
more than a superficial outline containing a summary of trite 
generalizations. The merits which the author has sought to 
incorporate are (i) to furnish a body of historical facts suffi- 
cient to give the student concrete material from which to 
form generalizations; (2) to suggest, chiefly by classification 
of this material, interpretations such as will not consist merely 
in unsupported generalizations; (3) to give, to some degree, 
a flavor of the original sources of information ; (4) to make 
evident the relation between educational development and 
other aspects of the history of civilization ; (5) to deal with 
educational tendencies rather than with men ; (6) to show 
the connection between educational theory and actual school 
work in its historical development ; (7) to suggest relations 
with present educational work. 

Containing as it does three or four times the material incor- 
porated in the text-books now in use in American schools, 
the extent of the work is justified in the opinion of the author 
by the greater interest to be aroused in the student by con- 
crete material bearing upon school life and connecting it with 
more or less familiar historical situations, and by the broader 
basis which it will furnish the instructor for his work. This 
more extended treatment will require but little more effort 
upon the part of the student, while at the same time it will 
give him far greater insight into the meaning of educational 



viii Preface 

theories and practices and their relation to the social life of 

the times. 

It is the belief of the author that the need of the student 
is to grasp great movements as they manifest themselves in 
thought and practice, and that a text-book which emphasizes 
these movements is more helpful than one which aims to give 
all the facts and which, in so doing, presents a multitude of 
men with diverse ideas and a multiplicity of phenomena with 
little basis of organization. Hence, to carry out his purpose, 
the author has selected only such men and such facts as 
have to do with typical movements, and which consequently 
influence present thought and life. Many men are slighted 
who in themselves are prominent enough, but who contribute 
little to a dominant movement or add but little to the ideas 
already presented. In giving the ideal of Roman education, 
the analysis of the training of the orator by Tacitus or Cicero, 
though quite as important as that of Quintilian, would have 
added little to the present discussion. So, too, there could 
have been added Protagoras, Seneca, a multitude of writers 
in the later Middle Ages, of the Renaissance, and of each 
modern period ; but they are omitted in the fixed belief that 
more is to be gained through very definite conceptions con- 
cerning a comparatively few leaders than through a mass of 
more or less unrelated detail concerning great numbers of 
those who from the particular point of view of the text are 
comparatively unimportant. In a similar way, through lack 
of space, many interesting illustrative quotations are abbre- 
viated or eliminated altogether. It is, however, the design 
of the author later to supplement this text with a series of 
source books illustrating the development of educational 
thought and practices. The first of these, that for the Greek 
and Roman period, has already been published. 

The needs of the student of the history of education are 
to acquire a sufficient body of fact concerning the educational 



Preface ix 

practices of the past ; to develop an ability to interpret that 
experience in order to guide his own practice ; to exercise 
his judgment in estimating the relation existing between 
various theories and corresponding practices ; and, above all, 
to obtain a conception of the meaning, nature, process, and 
purpose of education that will lift him above the narrow 
prejudices, the restricted outlo'ok, the foibles, and the petty- 
trials of the average schoolroom, and afford him the funda- 
mentals of an everlasting faith as broad as human nature 
and as deep as the life of the race. 

Under each general topic treated enough material is given 
to elucidate the main characteristic. For the same purpose 
the contributions of two or three of the most representative 
men are discussed. The restrictions of space and the work- 
ing conception adopted by the author forbid further elabora- 
tion of material, especially that of a biographical character. 
Consequently the text at almost every point aims to be sug- 
gestive rather than exhaustively conclusive. This fact will 
be evident to all in the treatment of those topics that come 
within the hmits of recent experience. To the student famil- 
iar with the historical field this is no less evident in the earlier 
than in the later chapters. 

It is not intended that answers to the lists of questions 
appended to each chapter should be worked up from this 
text.. They are suggestive of further work, of an intensive 
character, which may be done by the student with time and 
material at his disposal. Should the text itself furnish all 
the material that can well be used in the time allotment at 
the disposal of the class, these questions may be entirely 
disregarded. 

So, too, the reference lists, which are limited wholly to the 
educational Hterature in Enghsh and that of the most access- 
ible and helpful, are merely suggestive. For an exhaustive 
bibliography the student is referred to Professor Cubberley's 



X Preface 

excellent Syllabus of the History of Education, or for further 
suggestion not so elaborate to the pamphlet Syllabus prepared 
by the author to accompany this book. 

For helpful criticisms on the manuscript I desire to express 
my obligation to Mr. Theodore C. Mitchill and to my col- 
league, Professor John A. MacVannel. I am indebted to 
Miss Izora Scott for the index. 

PAUL MONROE. 
New York, 
August, 1905. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

PRIMITIVE EDUCATION. EDUCATION AS NON-PROGRESSIVE 

ADJUSTMENT 

PAGE 

SIGNIFICANCE OF PRIMITIVE EDUCATION .... i 
DOMINANT CHARACTERISTICS OF PRIMITIVE LIFE — ANI- 
MISM 2 

NATURE OF EDUCATION AMONG PRIMITIVE MAN DETER- 
MINED BY THIS DOMINANT SOCIAL CHARACTERISTIC 3 
FORMATION OF MEANS FOR THE ATTAINMENT OF EDUCA- 
TIONAL ENDS 6 

Practical education 6 

Theoretical education 7 

A teaching class ......... 8 

Subj ect-matter for study ........ 9 

A literary basis ......... 10 

METHOD OF PRIMITIVE EDUCATION ...... 10 

TRANSITION TO A HIGHER STAGE OF EDUCATIONAL PRO- 
CESS , 13 

CHAPTER II 

ORIENTAL EDUCATION. EDUCATION AS RECAPITULATION: 
CHINA AS A TYPE 

CONCEPTION OF EDUCATION HELD BY THE CHINESE . . 17 

Relation between social life and education 18 

Confucianism the basis of education 19 

Selections from Confucian text 20 

The family, the basal institution . 23 

DURATION, EXTENT, AND MODIFICATION OF THE CHINESE 

EDUCATION 24 

CONTENT, METHOD, AND ORGANIZATION OF CHINESE EDU- 
CATION 26 

xi 



xii Table of Contents 

PAGE 

Content 26 

Character of the language . , .26 

The literature .......... 27 

Stages of schooling ......... 28 

Content of elementary schools ....... 28 

The art of tvriting . . . . . . . , . 30 

Content of higher education . . . . . . . 31 

The school system 32 

The examination system 34 

Method of Chinese education 39 

Results of Chinese education 41 

CHINESE EDUCATION AS A TYPE OF ORIENTAL EDUCATION 46 



CHAPTER III 

THE GREEKS: EDUCATION AS PROGRESSIVE ADJUSTMENT 
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION 

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF GREEK EDUCATION . . . . 52 

Political development of personality 53 

Moral development of personality 53 

Intellectual development of personality . . . , . 55 

JEsthetic development of personality 57 

Meaning of Greek education 58 

Limitations of the Greek ideal and of Greek practices ... 59 

Greek education as a development 61 

PERIODS OF GREEK EDUCATION 61 

THE EDUCATION OF THE HOMERIC PERIOD .... 62 

The twofold ideal 63 

Ideal of man of action ........ 63 

Ideal of man of wisdo7n . . . ... . . . 65 

Social ajid individual elements in these ideals .... 66 

OLD GREEK EDUCATION 67 

Duties of a Greek citizen 68 

Worth or virtue as the aim of education . . . . • 68 

Spartan education 7° 

Influence of material and social enviromnent on character of 

Spartan edtication .....••• 7° 

Aim of Spartan education . .....■• 7^ 

Organization of Spartan education . . . . • • 73 

Content of Spartan education .....•• 75 

Moral training ......••• 77 



Prhnitive Education 

sy furnish still .further evidence that the bod_, anc; 

e are separable entil^^^since in these cases a for 

1 or hostile spirit has^^Kn possession of a body not its 

1. To his dog, his horse, his canoe, his weapons of war- 

i and chase, he attributes a similar double. For does he 

|; use them in his dreams ? Do they not cast a shadow as 

' himself does ? And do they not at times seemingly 

wart his will as if possessed of a hostile spirit ? Therefore 

death his horse and dog are killed ; perhaps his canoe, even 

is wife, is burned, or his weapons and household utensils are 

bried with the body in order that their doubles may serve his 

ouble as of yore. To his spirit, offerings of food and other 

lecessities of this life are made until the time when the 

•emembrance of him is lost in the worship of the multitude 

3f ancestral spirits that throng the air or inhabit the sensible 

objects that form the universe of the family or clan. 

Thus the primitive man explains the processes of the world 
around him; each material object, whether sensible or in- 
sensible from our point of view, is by him in hisjjnrejiective 
way endowed with consciousness. Through its double each 
feels and thinks and has the power of volition, as he himself 
has. The world of doubles is an immaterial counterpart of the 
^"i of material objects. Thus do ordinary processes of life 
lature find their explanation ; extraordinary happeninl 
imilar way, but indicate the interventions of such spiri 
fly if the occurrences are fraught with good resul 
if accompanied by evil consequences. \ 

"»£ OF EDUCATION OF PRIMITIVE MAN DETlvR- 
" THIS DOMINANT SOCIAL CHARACTERISTIC. 

-f the primitive man consists in acquiring th'^ 
'itisfaction of the wants of the body — fooc' 
'Iter; and, on the other hand, in placating, co 
ding the enmity of the world of spirits thr 
Since every sort of food, every tree or 



History of Education 

i jbrnishes materials for s helte r or clothing, every w 
plement, has a ghost4^i^^^e that must be conti 
] .16 the object itself can yiel^fl« satisfaction desired,' 
j^plest needs of life become clothed with dreadful imp' 
jid the satisfaction of these needs entails an elaborate r 
i:edure designed not only to secure the service or obj 
desired, but also to placate or control its double. While 
the ordinary incidents of life the spirits are placated by t; 
particular manner in which the desired object is acquired 
used, there yet remain those procedures of a more gener 
sort for appeasing the spirit world preparatory to a hunt, a 
i, expedition, a harvest, and a multitude of occasions aside fror 
1 the routine of life. 

\ The education of the primitive man consists, then, in thes( 
itwo processes. The first is the training necessary to the 
j satisfaction of the practical necessities of life. This training 
consists not alone in learning how to accomplish the object, 
P-that is, to hunt, fish, use weapons, prepare skins, and se- 
cure shelter, but, as well, how to do each of these things 
in that definite prescribed way which, through the experience 
' of the clan or family, — as interpreted by the shaman, ex- 
1 orcist, medicine man, or whatever the functionary may be 
called, — has been found to avoid offending the double? 
preside over these material things, and thus to accompli? 
results desired. The second is the training in the elab 
procedures, or forms of worship, through which it is r 
sary that every member of the group shall go in his er 
to jDlacate the spirit world, or to cultivate its good wiF 
process consists in acquiring a definite procedure c 
action appropriate to every experience, commc 
traordinary, in the life of the individual and of th 
ormer process constitutes his practical educ' 
s theoretical education. From the latter ,' 
■explanation of things ; for animism is fc, 
religion, philosophy, and science all in 



Primitive Edtication 5 

it is from these germs that philosophy, science, and the 
natural religions have evolvedr^ 

The theoretical educatlW of the primitive man, however"" 
much it may differ from the theoretical education of civilized 
man, is the samg^in-kind and in purpose. Through it he 
endeavors to obtain an explanation of life, a conception of 
reality, an understanding of Nature and her processes, and of 
the relation of the material to the immaterial world. As the 
modern scientist attributes to matter the possession of cer- 
tain forces, such as chemical affinity, molecular attractions, 
electrical currents, and expresses' them by symbols in order f 4 
to explain their actions and thus control them for his own \ 
purposes, so the primitive man attributes to all material forms 
the possession of doubles, as an explanation of their relation 
to him, that through their doubles or their symbols he may 
control them for his own use. It is through this theoretical 
education with primitive as well as with civilized man that 
the practical world is explained; and it is only through/ 
advance in the theoretical education — this explanation 0/ 
things — that progress in practical education is rendered 
possible. 

This being the nature of the educational process in primi- 
tive society, the aim of education — if an aim may be spoken 
of where the process is wholly unconscious — is to adjust the J 
individual to his material and immaterial environment through \ 
established or fixed ways of doing things in regard both to ^ 
work and to worship^ It is the group way of doing things 
that is forced upon primitive man. Neither man nor the 
group is vividly conscious of the individual, certainly not of 
his rights and his welfare as distinct from that of the group.. 
Hence, dominated as it is on every hand by custom and tra- 
dition, the education of the primitive man is so prescribed 
in its minutest detail that he has far less freedom than man 
usually possesses in higher stages of culture. 



/ 



6 History of Education 

FORMATION OF MEANS FOR ATTAINMENT OF EDU- 
CATIONAL ENDS. — Since fl^ith the primitive man there is 
Httle consciousness of individuality, and since the aim of edu- 
cation is accompHshed when the individuality completely 
disappears in the customary, prescribed way of doing things, 
there is Httle necessity for, certainly Httle achievement in, the 
elaboration of a machinery of education. The welfare of the 
group without consciousness of the rights of the individuals 
which compose it, is the end ; and this is an end to be ac- 
compHshed through the most general social institutions. 
, Practical Education. — The fundamental social institution 
itself — the family — is in the earliest stage the sole educa- 
tional institution. From this very fact it must ever remain 
the institution where the process of education must begin, 
and where the ultimate responsibility for the most general 
phases of the process must rest. When the practical pro- 
cesses of obtaining the necessities of life are rendered more 
definite and more highly developed by the first division of 
labor, the process of training in these procedures is also more 
clearly defined. Such training, however simple, is given in 
particular lines by the more specialized portions of the family 
or clan group. The primary division of labor, that between 
man and woman, necessitates that training in warfare and the 
chase should be given by the men ; that training in the 
preparation of food and clothing and the securing of shelter 
should be given by the women. But even with the subse- 
quent stage, when special ability in making weapons, in tat- 
tooing, in fishing, in weaving, in curing hides, etc., made far 
more definite this division of labor, and when the latter 
became the means for practical education, nevertheless the 
process remains one of unconscious imitation. Later in the 
transition from primitive life to the lower stages al^iviliza- 
tion, as these specialized callings became fixed in given 
famihes and it became desirable to transmit the specialized 
abilities from father to son, a further step in the evolutioj \ 



'11 



Primitive Education 7 

the educational process takes place in the formation of the 
caste system. Even yet, though now a conscious process, 
it is little more than imitation. Nor can the caste system be 
considered as primarily an educational system in the narrower 
sense of the word. ■ Caste is at basis a form of social organi- 
zation, the function of which is comparable to that of the 
family'though on somewhat more general lines. Education 
on the practical side has now developed a definite institu- 
tional organization, though of a most general character. So 
far as the individual is concerned, however, education is still 
non-progressive, for there is no development in aim or con- 
ception of education, or of individual life, and little change 
in method. 

Theoretical Education. — On the side of theoretical educa- 
tion, — that which sought to explain the problems and diffi- 
culties of practical education as well as those of life in 
general, — the means are somewhat more definite and the 
development more rapid. This phase of education has to 
do with that interpretation of the environing world of the 
savage and with his adjustment to that world of spirits which 
was complementary at every point to the material world. 
As remotely as the_J.ife_of_primitive man can be traced, the 
knowledge of how so to direct conduct that the demands of 
the spirit world would be met is found to be in the hands of 
a specialized class, — r the shamans, wizards, exorcists, medi- 
cine men, or familiars of whatever name. The direction of 
the conduct of the tribe, both in special practical affairs and 
in the forms of worship, constitutes the earliest theoretical 
education of the race. At this stage there is seldom any 
attempt at explanation of these procedures ; there is simply 
the determination of the act to be performed, and the method 
of performing it, — the wJiat to do and the how to do it. 

It is but natural that the friendly spirits should be in 
largest number those of departed ancestors. These are yet 
membefs^'or^the family group, inhabiting some object or 



8 History of Education 

objects associated with the family dwelling place. In time 
this is the family altar. Therefore, when the conditions of 
life become somewhat less harsh, and hence the friendly 
spirits become more numerous, religious ceremony, worship, 
incantation, or whatever it may be termed, gradually ceases 
to be so closely connected with the clan as with the sfnall 
family group. This worship then devolves upon the patri- 
archal father — the head of the family group — composed as 
that group is of many aggregates such as the modern family. 
The father then becomes the one who trains the younger 
generation in the formal conduct of life, — in the proper 
way of doing things. This constitutes their education. 
Though the shaman or interpreter of an unfriendly spirit 
world yet exists, his office becomes of less importance ; in 
fact, it becomes of import only on special occasions, and is 
similar in function to the office of the Hebrew prophet at a 
higher stage of social development. In this latter stage, since 
the duties of the patriarchal father have multiplied in the 
form of military, judicial, and political responsibilities, the 
priestly functions have become yet further speciahzed. 
With the formation of a special priesthood we find the first 
class whose office is distinctly educational. In three respects 
this advance in educational function may be recognized. 
These are the formation of a teaching class, of a subject- 
matter of education, and of language and literature as a 
basis. - 

A Teaching Class. — Religious teaching, now in the hands 
of the priests, yet relates, as did that of tbe. earlier stage, 
to the interpretation of the relation of the practical processes 
of this life to the spirit world — now definitely recognized as 
a life to come. This interpretation now calls for the inculca- 
tion of a body of doctrines and a training in an elaborate 
ceremonial or ritual. The doctrine becomes embodied in 
a system of general truths with concrete applications, both 
of which require instruction or at least training of the multi- 



Primitive Edtication 9 

tude by the priests. The ceremonial entails the training of 
the people in peculiar methods of performing ordinary activi- 
ties of life, such as those relating to selection and prepara- 
tion of articles of food, to character of dress, and the like, as 
well as in dancing, singing, the making of sacrifices and 
offerings. These are familiar to us through the Hebrew 
scriptures. 

Subject-matter for Study. — But above and beyond this 
educational function of the priesthood is another one, — ^the 
special interpretation of these doctrines to the prospective 
members of the priesthood themselves. Here has grown 
up in many instances an esoteric diactrine that is far differ- 
ent from that imparted to the multitude. The training of 
the multitude yet consists in indicating the "What to do," 
and the "How to do it"; while in that of the priesthood 
itself, is added the "Why it should be done." This inquiry 
into the meaning of these ceremonials and the attempt at a 
further interpretation of doctrines beyond that given to the 
multitude, gives rise to the first real processes of instruction 
and the first distinc-t educational institutions. Though it is 
yet but a "school for priests," this instruction of the pro- 
spective priests by the priesthood constitutes a school in 
the modern conception of the term. Among the ancient 
Egyptians and Chaldeans, even before Abraham was called 
from Ur, these schools first appeared. In other words, at' 
the very dawn of history these people are found to have 
passed from the stage of barbarism to that of the earliest 
civilization. 

This elaboration of an esoteric doctrine further gives rise 
both to intellectual development and intellectual differentia- 
tion. Out of this inquiry, as is clearly seen among the early 
Egyptians, grow the cosmologies, the early philosophies, 
the mathematical, the physical, and the biological sciences. 
Through this study the priesthood advance from a wholly 
animistic or spiritualistic interpretation to one partly meta 



lo History of hdiication 

physical and even, as is evidenced in the anatomical and 
hygienic ideas of the Egyptian priesthood, to an interpre- 
tation partly scientific. Some of this occult meaning is hidden 
in the formal teaching to the multitude, as in the case of the 
hygienic values of the ceremonial of both Hebrew and 
Egyptian, 

A Literary Basis. — The third respect in which the advance 
in educational function by the priesthood at this stage is to 
be seen is in the invention of a written language. With the 
elaboration of a body of doctrine and ceremonial, and the 
philosophical, cosmological, and scientific interpretations, it 
becomes necessary to commit them to permanent form, either 
through the invention or the borrowing of a written language. 
An elaborate literature quickly results, and offers the basis or 
means of a formal education. In addition to this body of 
orthodox and formal interpretation to be given to the multi- 
tude, theoretical education has become, on the part ^of the 
priesthood, the mastery of the written language and of this 
literature which contains for them, as our literature does for 
us, the culture history of the race. This culture history is 
the sum of human experience in testing the values and the 
meaning of life. 

METHOD OF PRIMITIVE EDUCATION. — Little remains 
to be added in regard to method. On the practical side, as 
we have seen, primitive man never, save in sporadic instances 
and in the highest stage, rose to the conscious process of 
instruction. Even the training given, where at best there is 
no attempt at explanation or interpretation but where merely 
the thing to do and the process of doing are indicated, is for 
the most part purely unconscious imitation. The child learns 
how to shoot with bow and arrow, how to dress the animal 
slain, how to cook, how to weave, how to make pottery, 
merely by observation and by using the ' trial and success ' 
method. Repeated imitation with successively fewer failures 



Prifnitive Edtication ii 

gives to the primitive child about all he acquires in the way 
of arts. With the development of caste, or even with a less 
highly developed division of labor, this process of imitation 
becomes conscious ; but never as a common practice does 
primitive life reveal to us a rationahzed process of instruc- 
tion. In fact, the method, both social and individual, is often 
most irrational. This fact is illustrated in the development 
in pottery making. Discovering first, through the accidental 
burning of a willow basket from around the clay bowl within 
which liquids were kept, that the clay would harden and be- 
come liquid proof, the primitive man for generations con- 
tinued to make pottery by first making the willow basket, 
plastering it over with clay, and then burning out the wooden 
model. By accident again discovering that the clay could be 
shaped direct, he continued for generations to impress the 
stamp of the unwoven willow upon the clay, that it might be 
burned in, though he made no willow model or form. 

Whereas almost every other ordinary phase of life is 
pictured out in permanent form, drawings or carvings of 
processes of instruction are wholly wanting. Of similar sig- 
nificance is the inability of barbarian people in our own time 
to give such illustration or explain the process by which the 
young are given the knowledge of these practical procedures 
in life. 

On the theoretical side the same method of bHnd imitation 
prevails. Only when there is evolved a definite class with 
priestly function necessitating the education of a special class 
in the lore of the priesthood, does there come to be instruc- 
tion in the sense of the attempt to discover and to impart 
why the things should__be__done as well as merely to indicate 
the action to be imitated or the doctrine or belief to be 
accepted. For the most part the only formal instruction of 
this kind is that given by the shamans or medicine men to 
the adolescent youth, who are taken aside for some days pre- 
vious to their entrance into full membership in the tribe to 



12 



History of EdtLcatiou 



be instructed in the secrets of their people. Dwelling under 
the obligation of secrecy, — even in many cases prohibited 
from speaking during the entire period though it may be 
many weeks in length, — the youth comes into possession of 
the wisdom of his people — their attempts at the interpreta- 




JSi^ai'- 



The Initiation of the Youth by the Shamans of a Central 
Australian Tribe. 

tion of this life through its relationship to the world of spirits. 
Very significant is the term "initiation" given by anthropol- 
ogists to these ceremonies, for it indicates clearly that primi- 
tive education, Hke most complex modern education, is but the 
initiation of the individual into the ways of society through the 
acquisition of its organized cultural possessions, now expanded 
into many subjects requiring years for its acquisition. The 



Primitive Education 13 

illustration given — ■ a rare representation of one of these 
ceremonies — is a photograph of the removal of this prohi- 
bition of speech from the youth of a Central Australian tribe 
after a period of instruction by the shamans. This instruc- 
tion is of the purely imitative ^character; for the youth but 
accept without any variation or any questioning the traditions 
of their tribe as transmitted by the only teachers they have. 

Custom - — ■ either in action or in interpreta^Jerf^^Tia^ been 
fixed, once for all, by the shaman or soothsayer, by incanta- 
tion, divination, consultation of oracle, or whatever method 
may be accepted ; and once determined, the duty of the inj^i- 
vidual is implicit obedience through imitation. 

TRANSITION TO A HIGHER STAGE OF THE EDUCA- 
TIONAL PROCESS. — Through a most elaborate inductive 
inquiry covering most primitive societies (though the same 
truth may be drawn from observation of modern society), Mr. 
Spencer has shown that " the least developed people are the 
most averse to change." The primitive man lives by adjust- 
ment to his immediate environment through direct imitation of 
the acts of his elders or direct obedience to the commands of the 
shaman or familiar, who, in turn, is guided as far as possible 
by the same principle. The world of the primitive man is all 
of the present, for he possesses little or no consciousness 
either of past or future. His education is mere adjustment 
to environment. Hence as his environment is non-changing, 
his education is non-progressive. Having no idea of the 
future, no constructive imagination, the immediate desires 
control. To quote Mr. Spencer again, " Pain and pleasure to 
come, not being vividly conceived, give no adequate spur to 
action ; leaving a light-hearted careless absorption in the 
present," As his ancestral spirits dwell about him, he has 
little conception of a future life, differentiated from this life ; 
none certainly that affects his conduct and requires any ad- 
justment to its demands as a part of his education. 



14 History of hducation 

Having no records, and little memory save for details, the 
savage and barbarian can have little conception of the past; 
as Spencer shows, they can have no recognition of long se- 
quences. Hence, again, in their life and their education 
there is no conscious attempt to preserve the past, no adjust- 
ment of life to an environment determined wholly by the 
experiences of past generations. Close adherence to custom 
and tradition there is, but it is the result of unreflective imita- 
tion. As has been seen, the only things that concern the 
primitive man are his immediate daily wants, and the need of 
placating the forces that interfere with this satisfaction. 
Consequently his perceptive faculties are highly developed, 
his reflective faculties hardly at all. Of the immediate, pres- 
ent environment he is conscious ; and his education is an 
adjustment to this, without any attempt to influence or con- 
trol the remote future or to recapitulate the past. It is only 
the man of genius, then as now, that suggests a modification 
of an old way or in those times even becomes conscious of the 
imitative process. Such men, unreflective as they are, their 
shamans and familiars, are their only teachers. 

From even this slight reflection upon observed experiences 
come in time means for making permanent records. Through 
written records are accumulated the materials for the forma- 
tion of general judgments; from reflection and the attempt 
to interpret come the means for measurement; from these 
intellectual instruments of measurement — mathematical, 
scientific, and the like — come conceptions of uniformity, of 
cause and effect, of general law. The formulation of these 
gives to the world the early philosophies, cosmologies, and 
the germs of all the sciences. Of these latter goods, the 
primitive man had none at all. But with their emergence, 
thought begins to possess a definiteness, impossible in the 
animistic stage, and there develops a correspondence between 
thought and things. Along with this must grow up a skepti- 
cism concerning the old, a criticism of the new, and progress 



Primitive Education 15 

into newer and better things. Long before this is reached, 
however, the primitive stage has been left. 

Along with these changes in the thought life that mark the 
transition from the primitive stage j)f culture werit others no' 
less fundamental. TBe'^triarchal family adopted a fixed 
abode ; and government or social organization, based upon 
territorial relationship and possession of land, succeeded that 
based upon the blood tie of family relationship. Society 
became political instead of genetic in character. Ancestral 
worship was replaced by a worship of natural objects or 
natural forces, or territorial gods. The gods of fire, of water, 
of the storm, of the harvest, in turn, were superseded by the 
gods of war, of commerce, of music, of poetry, and of love, 
and by other such immaterial forces. Man came into fuller 
consciousness of his past and its worth, of his future and its 
possibilities. Education, in these stages, was no longer 
controlled by the present alone ; it became, through some 
control of his development in the present, an attempt to 
approximate in the individual the worth of the past or to 
realize in him the possibilities of the future, either of this life 
or of the life to come. Then the description of education of 
the primitive man, as non-progressive adjustment to an 
environment of the immediate present, no longer avails, for 
higher stages have been attained, ^""^--^ 

REFERENCES 

The material bearing upon this chapter is of a most general anthro- 
pological character. Of this material the most accessible is as follows : — 
Chamberlain, The Child. A Study of the Evoliiiioji of Maft. Chs. 7 

and 8. (London, 1891.) 
Chamberlain, The Child and Childhood in Folk Thought. (New York, 

1896.) 
Spencer's Principles of Sociology, Vol. I, Chs. 6-26 inclusive. (New 

York, 1895.) 
Starr, First Steps in Human Progress, Chs. 21-22, 26. (New York, 

1895O ' 



1 6 History of Edticatio7i 

Tylor, Anthropology, Chs. 4-12. (New York, 1871.) 
Tylor, Primitive Culture, Vol I, Ch. 2. (New York, 1880.) 
The only direct discussions of this topic in English are in Professor 
Davidson's History of Education, Chs. I, II, III, and IV ; F. C. Spencer's 
Education of the Pueblo Child (an elaborate discussion of the educational 
custom of a particular primitive tribe) ; Letourneau's L Evohdion de 
Veducation dans les diverses races huniaines (the most comprehensive work 
on the subject). Also consult accounts of the initiatory ceremonies of 
primitive people found in the Folk Lore Journal, and in the reports of 
Ethnology published by the United States Government. 

TOPICAL QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY 

1. What advance beyond primitive methods of education is found in the 
earlier caste systems of Egypt and India ? 

2. To what extent can a definite conscious educational process be found 
among the American Indians? (See Education of a Pueblo Child, and 
Ethnological Studies of the Indiaiis, published by the United States Gov- 
ernment.) 

3. To what extent is there a parallel between the function of the 
Hebrew prophets and priests and those of the shamans and the patriarchal 
priests of primitive society ? (See Robertson Smith, Religion of the 
Setnites, etc.) 

4. What connection can be discovered, among Egyptians, Chaldeans, 
and other ancient peoples, between the beginnings of written language and 
the beginnings of schools and of definite processes of instruction ? 

5. What relation,' if any, is there discoverable between the educational 
functions of the family in primitive life and in modern life? 

6. From the point of view of primitive education, what is the meaning 
both for the individual and for society, of a school? Of the subjects of 
study ? 



. CHAPTER II 

ORIENTAL EDUCATION. EDUCATION AS RECAPITULA- 
TION. THE CHINESE AS A TYPE 

CONCEPTION OF EDUCATION HELD BY THE CHINESE. 

— The fundamental relation of education to the entire scheme 
of life of the Chinese is revealed in the initial sentence of one 
of the Confucian texts : " What Heaven has conferred is 
called nature ; an accordance with nature is called the path 
of duty ; the regulation of this path is called instruction." 
The purpose of education is to train each individual in this 
path of duty, wherein is most minutely prescribed every 
detail of life's occupations and relationships. These have 
not varied for centuries. In reality Heaven has "conferred" 
merely that which exists — that which was estabhshed, or, 
rather, elaborated, explained, certified to, and made authori- 
tative by Confucius ; and by him in turn considered authorita- 
tive because it had the sanction of the ancestral approval of 
many generations. The natural state — - that authoritatively 
approved by religion, morality, and the government — is the 
existing state of relationships.' (The "path of duty" is the 
maintenance of that which exists, without change or modifi- 
cation. j Education has for its function the training of the 
leaders in the knowledge of all this ancient learning respect- 
ing the order of society and the proper relationships in life, 
and the training of the entire population in the proper modes 
of conduct respecting every activity, every interest through- 
ou'; life. 

No age or place, either in the past or present, has seen a 
people that was so thoroughly controlled by the minutiae of cus- 
c 17 



1 8 History of Education 

torn, that regarded so sacredly its most punctilious observance, 

or that has persisted so long in this subserviency to the past. 

Thoroughly interwoven as they are with every aspect of their 

life, the educational ideals and practices of this people explain 

the long continuance of their unchanging social structure, 

their conservative character, their chief moral traits, their 

strength and weakness, either as individuals or as a nation. 

For this reason no other type — in fact, no other instance of 

an educational system — gives a clearer example of the close 

/ relation between education and the social structure and life 

1 as a whole ; and nowhere else is education more influential 

V_or more successful in accomplishing its aim. 

Relation between Social Life and Education. — Because of 
this close relationship that education bears to life, it possesses 
a distinctly moral character. While, as we are soon to see, 
the education of the schools is of a distinctly literary char- 
acter, and it is often cited as an example of a wholly formal 
and unpractical education, yet the content of this instruction 
and this literature relates entirely to conduct, and so gives to 
the individual thus trained both an ability to shape his own 
conduct aright, and a knowledge that will enable him to 
direct the conduct of others. Rewarded as are the learned 
men or educated class of no other country, the successful 
student of this literature becomes the political official, with 
complete control of the organization and direction of social 
life. Such government as they have consists in applying 
these ancient rules of conduct to present life ; their govern- 
ing class is wholly composed of " scholars in politics " ; their 
aristocracy is truly an aristocracy of learning. The aim of 
the Chinese system of government is to prevent change, and 
hence they are often represented as having no government. 
In a remarkable way that is not true of any Western people, 
the education, the government, the ethical beliefs and prac- 
tices of the Chinese all are based upon and all find an expres- 
sion in a religion — that of Confucianism. Confucianism is 



Oriental Educatio7i 19 

embodied in the sacred texts, TJie Four Books and The 
Five Classics. These are in part the work of Confucius 
(551-478 B.C.), in part that of his great disciple, Mencius 
(372-289 B.C.), and in part that of later disciples. However, 
Confucius in his time assigned the authority of more than 
twenty centuries to the teachings that have subsequently 
borne his name. 

Confucianism the Basis of Education. — In a remarkable 
manner Confucianism unites political or social ethics with 
private morality. Of itself it furnishes rather a system of 
philosophy than a system of religion or of worship. Its sys- 
tem of conduct receives reenforcenient from the other two 
religions of China — Buddhism and Taoism. All ethical 
teachings and all social obligations are summed up in those 
of the " five relationships " that are taught to every child in 
ten syllables, as an " A B C " of conduct. These are the rela- 
tion of sovereign and subject, parent and child, husband and 
wife, brother and brother, friend and friend. As there are 
five senses, five elements, five planets, five races, five colors, 
five notes in music, five tastes, five points to the compass, so, 
too, there are five virtues — benevolence, justice, order, pru- 
dence, fidelity. 

Strikingly parallel to the teaching of the Greek philoso- 
phers, that virtue consists in moderation, in the medium 
between excels and complete denial, in the mean between 
two vices, is this teaching of Confucius recognized as his 
chief principle : Perfect equilibrium of emotions and pas- 
sioipS results in virtue, is "the doctrine of the mean." 
/ o strikingly similar to Greek ideas is Mencius's teaching 
TT 1 man is by nature good, not evil, and that ethics 
education are to preserve nature and direct him in its 
r /s. " Man," he says, " inclines to virtue, as water does to 
r / downward, or as the wild beast does to seek the forest." 
• 'he teachings of Confucian literature- have received full 
ijgnition and have been given great praise. It has been 



20 History of Education 

said of the Chinese " that they have the loftiest moral code 
which the human mind unaided by divine revelation has 
ever produced, and its crystalline precepts have been the rich 
inheritance of every successive present from every succes- 
sive past." Especially has this been claimed for the remark- 
able principle which Confucius puts into the mouth of the 
m9.ster when the pupil asks, " Is there one good word which 
may serve as a rule for the practice of all one's life ? " 
"Yes," replies the master, "is not reciprocity such a word ? 
What you do not want done to yourself do not do to others." 
It is wholly characteristic of their ethics that this should be 
in negative rather than in positive form. But while fullest 
recognition should be given to these principles, it must be 
admitted that they are few and far between. For the most 
part these sacred writings are devoted to an exposition of 
details of conduct which are prescribed for every conceivable 
relationship and occasion in life. To the great bulk of those 
who follow the teachings of this literature the principle is 
seldom discovered on account of the precepts. 

The following brief passage from the Li-Ki, or Book of 
Rites, one of the Five Classics, will better illustrate the con- 
tent and spirit of these sacred books, as it will illustrate at 
the same time the aim and content of their education. This 
passage includes the opening paragraphs of che chapter on 
"The Pattern of the Family," where one would expect to 
find the virtues of this people set forth ; and is typical of the 
material that is studied in the school. \ 

\ 

Selection from Confucian Text. — " i. The sovereign anci 
king orders the chief minister to send down his (lessons of) 
virtue to the millions of the people. 

2. Sons, in serving their parents, on the first crowing of 
the cock, should all wash their hands, and rinse their mouths, 
comb their hair, draw over it the covering of silk, fix this 
with the hairpin, bind the hair at the roots with the fillet, 
brush the dust from that which is left free, and then put on 



Oriental Education 21 

their caps, leaving the ends of the strings hanging down. 
Tliey should then put on their squarely made black jackets, 
knee covers, and girdles, fixing in the last their tablets. 
From the left and right of the girdle they should hang their 
articles for use : on the left side, the duster and handker- 
chief, the knife and whetstone, the small spike and the metal 
speculum for getting fire from the sun ; on the right the 
archer's thimble for the thumb and the armlet, the tube for 
writing instruments, the knife case, the larger spike, and the 
borer for getting fire from wood. They should put on their 
leggings and adjust their shoe strings. 

3. (Sons') wives should serve their parents-in-law as they 
served their own. At the first crowing of the cock, they 
should wash their hands, and rinse their mouths ; comb their 
hair, draw over it the covering of silk, fix this with the hair- 
pin, and tie the hair at the roots with the fillet. They should 
then put on the jacket, and over it the sash. On the left 
side they should hang the duster and handkerchief, the knife 
and whetstone, the small spike, and the metal speculum to 
get fire with ; and on the right, the needlecase, thread, and 
floss, all bestowed in the satchel, the great spike, and the 
borer to get fire with from wood. They will also fasten on 
their necklaces, and adjust their shoe strings, etc." -^ 

This continues for many paragraphs devoted to the con- 
duct of younger son, younger daughter, daughter-in-law, etc., 
and for many chapters upon every possible activity and rela- 
tionship of individuals in the family. The virtues of family 
life are those of filial duty, fraternal love, friendship, and the 
like ; the concrete embodiment of these and other virtues can 
be judged in the light of the passage quoted. 

These texts contain no portrayal of immorality of the gods 
as in the Greek religious literature, or of those of men as in the 
Hebrew, nor the extravagances of the mythologies of most 
peoples ; on the other hand, they inculcate the solid virtues 
of an unchangeable and unprogressive system of society, and 
of a people destined to a materialistic and, of necessity, sordid 
view of life. Here are no teachings to inspire the individual, 

1 Miiller, Sacred Books of the East, Vol. 37, p. 449. 



2 2 History of Kdttcation 

no breath of idealism ; even the rare principles of ethical 
character are based wholly on arbitrary authority or irrational 
tradition. 

Sufficient detail concerning the religion, ethics, and sacred 
literature of this people has been given^to indicate the char- 
acter and purpose of their education. For the individual, 
education consists in the mastery of this sacred literature in 
order that he may live in accordance with the path of nature 
marked out therein, i This mastery necessitates a perfect 
memorizing of these sacred books and a knowledge of the 
many commentaries upon them. In order that the Confucian 
statement of the work of education may be made socially 
complete, the government adds one additional educational 
aim. The conduct of government is given into the hands 
of those who show the greatest mastery of the content 
of these sacred books and an ability to imitate them in 
thought, in formal construction, and in archaic style. This is 
accomplished by a system of examinations in essay writing. 
Of the importance of this ability to write such essays Smith 
says : " Measured by Chinese standards, the construction of a 
perfect essay is one of the noblest achievements of which 
the human mind is capable. The man who knows all that 
has been preserved of the wisdom of the ancients, and who 
can at a moment's notice dash off essays of a symmetrical 
construction, lofty in sentiment, elevated in style, and dis- 
playing a wide acquaintance not only with the theme, but 
also with cognate subjects, such a man is fit not only to stand 
before kings, but before the very Son of Heaven himself." 
When these marked individuals, most able because most 
steeped in the life of the past, with all tendency, abihty, and 
incHnation to vary from the traditional form eradicated, are 
selected to govern their fellow-men and to see that they do 
not violate " the will of Heaven " and do not wander from 
"this path of duty" established by Heaven, the social aim of 
education is accomplished. 



Oriental Education 23 

The Family, the Basal Institution. — One further point 
concerning the general nature of their education is to be 
noted. While instruction is given in a special institution, — 
the school, — the family in a peculiar way furnishes the 
basis of their education. The ethics of the Chinese is one of 
family duties and activities ; the five great relationships are 
all those of the family ; the content of their sacred literature 
relates almost wholly to these relationships. Their religion 
is an ancestor worship. Filial piety is their greatest and 
the one encompassing virtue. The family is indeed the 
unit of social organization, for the son can be punished for 
the misdeeds of the father. Their jurisprudence and morals 
consist in these same definitely settled and prescribed rules 
such as grow out of the family relationships. Thus the 
family dominates their society, as the institution of animism 
did that of primitive man. 

DURATION, EXTENT, AND MODIFICATION OF THE 
CHINESE SYSTEM OF EDUCATION. — From the fifteenth 
century before Rome, and the twenty-second before Christ, the 
Chinese have existed as a distinct nation, with some degree of 
social solidarity, and with a culture of a fixed society. In 
this respect China is typical of Oriental societies in general. 
Since its educational system has had a history somewhat simi- 
lar in length, and one that has been the vital factor in the 
preservation of its character, its educational system also be- 
comes a type of Oriental education. " Before Abraham left 
Ur of the Chaldees in the west of Asia," says Lewis, " an 
Emperor of China had established a system of education in 
the east of Asia, which is still in existence, and which has 
produced a race whose constant worship is bestowed upon 
those men, now deified, who taught them the beauty and 
power of the Chinese language." Though M. Biot, the 
earliest and probably the most authoritative western investi- 
gi tor of Chinese education, traces the origin of this system 



24 History of Edtication. 

to the twenty-third century B.C., little that is authentic can be 
discovered before the seventh century B.C. After a period 
of civil war and disorder Confucius appeared, reestablished 
the authority of the sacred literature, elaborated and per- 
petuated through his own writings these teachings which he 
at least validates by assigning to them the weight of an- 
tiquity, directed his people into that pursuit of peace which 
has ever since characterized them as a nation ; and influenced 
them to accept, study, and worship the teachings of this 
literature. Thus the Chinese became " a people of a book," 
a nation founded on and perpetuated by a scheme of religious 
and literary education. Mencius became a new interpreter 
of the literature and added to it by similar elaboration. 

While the origin of the present system of education and 
of examinations dates from about the seventh century b.c, it 
has been subject, as has Chinese society in every respect, to 
a multitude of historical changes. Though when compared 
with Western peoples it is permissible to say that the institu- 
tions and customs of the Chinese are unchangeable, yet there 
has been some development. However, it is no part of our 
purpose to follow these changes. It is sufficient to note that 
the present system of examinations, in all its details as a 
means of filling all governmental offices and with its various 
degrees, was established about 617 a.d., upon the accession 
of the great T'ang dynasty. For some centuries a system of 
colleges was quite as important as the correlative system of 
examinations, but for the last three centuries the present 
Manchu dynasty has laid all stress upon the examinations. 

The extent of this system is little less marvelous than its 
duration. It covers a territory almost twice that of the 
United States ; it controls a population quite five times as 
great. It extends over one tenth of the habitable globe, and 
includes one fifth of the human race. That a system of 
education should affect so large a population, should remain 
in existence for so long a time, and should result, as has this 



Oriental Educatioji 25 

one, in the actual maintenance of this social structure, co- 
extensive in time and space with the educational system, 
makes it well worth study by any one seeking knowledge of 
our own educational forces and a basis of judgment of 
educational practices. 

Since 1895 this system has undergone changes which 
will tend to modify in a radical manner both the education 
and the social life of these people. In fact it is universally 
recognized, both by the Chinese and the Occidentals, that a 
change in the life, government, social ideals and religion of 
the Chinese can come only through some modification of 
their educational system. As our interest is in the system 
as a type, we have no concern in these current changes save 
to note the emphasis which they give to the close connection 
between educational ideals and practices and the life of 
society at large. 

After the Chinese-Japanese War, owing to a variety of 
influences, chiefly those of contact with Europeans and Ameri- 
cans, the sentiment for the introduction of Western learning 
began to spread rapidly among the literati and the leading 
officials. In 1898 the old examination system was abolished 
by edict of the Emperor and a system of Western colleges 
substituted. This, however, was too radical a change, and 
shortly afterward the Emperor was deposed by the royal 
family. However, after this practical demonstration that 
the examinations in bow and arrow competitions were insuffi- 
cient to produce leaders for a modern army, the Empress 
Dowager, the head of the reactionary movement, began, her- 
self, in 1 90 1 to introduce reforms into the old system. By 
decree the old orthodox literary style in examinations was 
abolished and " short essays or articles on modern methods 
and Western laws, constitutions, and political economy " were 
substituted. In the hands of men whose sympathies are 
largely against them, and whose education wholly unfits them 
for the introduction of the new learning, it is evident that 



24 History of Education. 

to the twenty-third century B.C., little that is authentic can be 
discovered before the seventh century b.c. After a period 
of civil war and disorder Confucius appeared, reestablished 
the authority of the sacred literature, elaborated and per- 
petuated through his own writings these teachings which he 
at least validates by assigning to them the weight of an- 
tiquity, directed his people into that pursuit of peace which 
has ever since characterized them as a nation ; and influenced 
them to accept, study, and worship the teachings of this 
literature. Thus the Chinese became " a people of a book," 
a nation founded on and perpetuated by a scheme of religious 
and literary education. Mencius became a new interpreter 
of the literature and added to it by similar elaboration. 

While the origin of the present system of education and 
of examinations dates from about the seventh century e.g., it 
has been subject, as has Chinese society in every respect, to 
a multitude of historical changes. Though when compared 
with Western peoples it is permissible to say that the institu- 
tions and customs of the Chinese are unchangeable, yet there 
has been some development. However, it is no part of our 
purpose to follow these changes. It is sufficient to note that 
the present system of examinations, in all its details as a 
means of filling all governmental offices and with its various 
degrees, was established about 617 a.d., upon the accession 
of the great T'ang dynasty. For some centuries a system of 
colleges was quite as important as the correlative system of 
examinations, but for the last three centuries the present 
Manchu dynasty has laid all stress upon the examinations. 

The extent of this system is little less marvelous than its 
duration. It covers a territory almost twice that of the 
United States ; it controls a population quite five times as 
great. It extends over one tenth of the habitable globe, and 
includes one fifth of the human race. That a system of 
education should affect so large a population, should remain 
in existence for so long a time, and should result, as has this 



OriL 11 1 a I Edii ca tioii 



-'5 



one, in the actual maintenance of this social structure, co- 
extensive in time and space with the educational system, 
makes it well worth study by any one seeking knowledge of 
our own educational forces and a basis of judgment of 
educational practices. 

Since 1895 this system has undergone changes which 
will tend to modify in a radical manner both the education 
and the social life of these people. In fact it is universally 
recognized, both by the Chinese and the Occidentals, that a 
change in the life, government, social ideals and religion of 
the Chinese can come only through some modification of 
their educational system. As our interest is in the system 
as a type, we have no concern in these current changes save 
to note the emphasis which they give to the close connection 
between educational ideals and practices and the life of 
society at large. 

After the Chinese-Japanese War, owing to a variety of 
influences, chiefly those of contact with Europeans and Ameri- 
cans, the sentiment for the introduction of Western learning 
began to spread rajjidly among the literati and the leading 
officials. In 1898 the old examination system was abolished 
by edict of the Emperor and a system of Western colleges 
substituted. This, however, was too radical a change, and 
shortly afterward the Emperor was deposed by the royal 
family. However, after this practical demonstration that 
the examinations in bow and arrow competitions were insuffi- 
i icnt to produce leaders for a modern army, the Empress 
Dowager, the head of the reactionary movement, began, her- 
self, in 1 90 1 to introduce reforms into the old system. Hy 
decree the old orthodox literary st\'le in examinations was 
abolished and " short essays or articles on modern methods 
and Western laws, constitutions, and political economy " were 
substituted. In the hands of men whose sympathies are 
largely against them, and whose education wholly unfits them 
(or the introduction of the new learning, it is evident thai 



26 History of Education 

• 

such reforms can be only partial. Yet, with the prizes for 
learning, and the extensive system that exists for instruction, 
or at least for examination, change cannot but be rapid, when, 
as is the case, the learned classes are becoming more sympa- 
thetic with the new ideals. 

CONTENT, ORGANIZATION, AND METHOD OF CHINESE 
EDUCATION. — It is the uniform testimony of all competent 
observers that in no country is education of a formal, that is 
literary, character, so highly valued ; nowhere has education 
such a direct and permanent influence in shaping the char- 
acter of the people ; nowhere are the educational activities 
and processes so uniform. By reason of its education China 
is a land of absolute uniformity. It is a land of observance 
of tradition and of custom, a land in which no change from 
the accepted way of thinking, feeling, or doing is permitted, 
and in which comparatively httle really occurs. Yet that 
education is most restricted in its content, most formal in its 
method, and most stereotyped and inflexible in its organiza- 
tion. Let us examine each in turn. 

Content. — The purpose of the elementary stages of Chi- 
nese education is to familiarize the boy — it goes without say- 
ing that the girl has no consideration whatever in their literary 
or institutional education — with the language and with their 
sacred literature. Familiarity here means an absolute verbal 
knowledge of the entire literature and an ability to compose 
in the stilted formal and archaic style of their writings. The 
greater part of elementary and of higher education consists 
in memorizing these forms of language and literature without 
any necessary knowledge of their real significance. The 
character of this task can be appreciated by noting the char- 
acter of both language and literature. 

CJiaracter of the Language. — The characters of the Chi- 
nese language represent ideas, not sounds : it is an ideographic, 
not a phonetic language. Consequently, it has practically as 



Oriental Education 27 

many characters as it has ideas. Like the arithmetical digits, 
these characters have no vocables — they have a meaning 
primarily for the eye, not the ear. It is almost impossible 
to estimate accurately the number of these characters com- 
posing the language. Most authorities estimate the number, 
exclusive of obsolete words and synonyms, at about 25,000. 
Considering those characters that are given a different mean- 
ing by a stress mark as totally different, other estimates make 
the number 260,000. When it is remembered that practically 
it is to be learned as our alphabet, even the smaller number 
presents an appalling task for the schoolboy. However, 
many of these 25,000 characters are seldom used. In fact, 
the nine .sacred books, which form the bulk of their educa- 
tional material, contain less than 5000 different characters. 
Again, it is to be remembered that there are six distinct types 
of handwriting — similar to the script, Roman, italic, black- 
letter, etc., of English. These are the ornamental, the official, 
the Hterary or pattern style, the common hand, the running 
hand, the angular style similar to printing. Of these forms 
several must often be acquired. But more important than 
this so far as concerns the schoolboy, it is to be remembered 
that this language of the school is practically a dead language 
and hence has little or no connection with that which he uses 
in his everyday life. Verbs have no tense, voice, or mood ; 
nouns have no gender, number, or case. Since the meaning 
and use of a word is determined altogether by collocation, — 
by its relationship as shown by positioh or by stress of voice, 
— the very simplicity of the grammatical structure adds to his 
difficulty. The use, then, of a literary style — that approved 
by scholarly standards — is only acquired after years of prac- 
tice of a most rigidly imitative character. 

The Literature itself presents, scarcely less difficulty than 
the language. In addition to being in a " dead language " — 
at least not in the spoken one — it carries no meaning to the 
student for many years. " It is," says Martin, " as if our 



28 History of Education 

schoolboys studied Latin alone, and were compelled to coni' 
mit to memory the leading Latin classics, so that they could 
be repeated without a single error, and yet with no knowledge 
of what the words, much less the literature, meant." 

Stages of Schooling. — The first period of instruction, that 
in the elementary schools, is devoted to the memorizing of 
the forms of an infinitude of diversely formed characters 
through the mastery of a few universally adopted texts, and 
the memorizing of the nine canonical books. The second 
stage is devoted to translation. As the first stage had been 
mere memorizing of form of these texts and lessons in com- 
position, the secofnd is an actual reading. The third stage is 
devoted to the composition of essays until the art is suf- 
ficiently acquired to enable one to pass the examinations. 
This training in composition writing entails a more intensive 
study of form and content of their literature. The two latter 
stages constitute their higher education. 

The Content of their Elementary Education. — When one 
considers that these schools are all voluntary, and that the 
widest diversity in territorial environment and some consider- 
able variety of racial elements is included, this content 
possesses a remarkable uniformity. 

The book used everywhere for beginners is the Trimet- 
rical Classic, so called from the arrangement of the char- 
acters. Judging from the content of this remarkable 
"primer," one might imagine that this large section of the 
human race was very superior to the rest in intelligence ; 
but when one remembers that the sole purpose in using it 
is to give command of characters, of which the book con- 
tains more than five hundred different ones, all superiority, 
save of a mechanical and memorizing kind, disappears. In 
truth, the opening sentence of this primer states a philo- 
sophical and religious doctrine that has been the subject 
perennial debate among the learned of most peoples. Thf 
opening lines are thus translated by Williams: — 



Oriental Education 29 

" Men at their birth are by nature radically good : 
Though alike in this, in practice they widely diverge. 
If not educated, the natural character grows worse : 
A course of education is made valuable by close attention. 

^ Of old, Mencius's mother selected a residence, 
And when her son did not learn, cut out the (half-wove) web. 
To nurture and not educate is a father's error : 
To educate without rigor shows a teacher's indolence. 
That boys should not learn is an unjust thing : 
For if they do not learn in youth, what will they do when old? 
As gems unwrought serve no useful end. 
So men untaught will never know what right conduct is." 

A second of their primers is the Century of Surnames, con- 
taining about four hundred different family or clan names. 
Though the mastery of this is quite similar to learning the 
genealogical tables of the Bible, the book has some practical 
value. This is followed by the most remarkable of all these 
texts, — The Millenary Classic. This consists of just one thou- 
sand characters no two of which are alike in form or meaning:, 
but arranged to secure both rhyme and rhythm. Naturally 
the content is of the most discursive character. These three 
texts are followed by the Odes for Children, Canons of Filial 
Duty, and the Juvenile Instructor, all emphasizing in tale or 
precept the fundamental ethical ideas, or rather observances, 
of the Chinese. As most children in the schools never get 
beyond this stage, they have, in a way, a remarkable influence. 
In many respects the principles of morality inculcated are 
worthy and noble, in many merely trivial and formal. Yet 
few of the Chinese, after all, obtain their ethical ideas or moral 
code from these texts, so formal is the character of school 
work. , Dr. W. A. P. Martin, whose labors of a half-century 
in the education of the Chinese, much of the time in connec- 
tion with the Imperial University, make him a most com- 
petent critic, says : — 

" Nothing could be more dreary than the labors of the first 
stage. The pupil comes to school, as one of his books tells 



30 History of Education 

him, ' a rough gem that requires grinding ' ; but the process 
is slow and painful. His books are in a dead language, for 
in every part of the Empire the style of literary composition 
is so far removed from that of the vernacular speech that 
books, when read aloud, are unintelligible even to the ear 
of the educated, and the sounds of their characters convey 
absolutely no meaning to the mind of a beginner. Nor, as 
a general thing, is any effort made to give them life by im- 
parting glimpses of their signification. The whole of this 
first stage is a dead lift of memory, unalleviated by the exer- 
cise of any other faculty." 

This comment also applies to the work in the next stage of 
school life, the memorizing of The Four Books and TJie Five 
Classics. This work takes four to five additional years and 
completes the tasks of the ordinary village or town schools. 
Of this entire schooling Martin adds : " During all this 
time the mind has not been enriched by a single idea. To 
get the words at the tongue's end and characters at the 
pencil's point, is the sole object of this initial discipline." 

The nine sacred books are in bulk about equal to the Old 
and New Testaments. Hence, to have completed the work 
of the village or elementary schools, possibly by the age of 
fifteen, probably much later, the youth has accomplished a 
prodigious feat of memory, but he has acquired little else. 

The Art of Writing, it is true, he has also gained. This, 
however, is of quite as arbitrary a character and bears as 
little relation to daily life as does his literary training. 
Stranger yet is the fact that until he reaches the period of 
composition writing, the art of writing may have little rela- 
tion to the work he is doing in reading. Smith gives the 
following summary of this phase of school work : — 

"The task of learning to write Chinese characters is a very 
serious one, in comparison with which it is scarcely unfair to 
characterize the mastery of the art of writing any European 
language, as a mere pastime. The correct notation of char- 
acters is, moreover, not less important than the correct recog- 



Oriental Education 31 

nition of them, for success in some of the examinations is 
made to depend as much upon caligraphy as upon style. 
The characters which the teacher selects for the writing 
exercises of his pupils have no relation, strange as it may 
seem, to anything which he is studying. These characters 
may at first be taken from little books of rhymes arranged 
for the purpose, containing characters at once simple and 
common. The next step is to change to books containing 
selections from the T'ang Dynasty poets, an appreciation of 
which involves acquaintance with tones and rhyme, of which 
the pupil, as yet, knows nothing. The characters which he 
now learns to write he has very likely never seen before, and 
they do not at all assist his other studies. The only item of 
which notice is taken, is whether the characters are well or 
ill formed. Review there is none. The reason for choosing 
T'ang Dynasty poetry for writing lessons, instead of charac- 
ters or sentences which are a part of the current lesson, is 
that it is customary to use the poetry, and is not customary 
to use anything else, and that to do so would expose himself 
to ridicule." 



From the character of Chinese life, with its multitude of 
necessary daily transactions, the use of cash of almost in- 
finitesimal value, the amount of time spent in counting it 
and the extremely practical and materialistic nature of their 
daily occupations, it would seem that a knowledge of arith- 
metic would be one of the subjects given most prominence in 
the schools. But it does not appear at all. " To add, sub- 
tract, multiply, to know what to do with decimal fractions, 
these are daily necessities of every one in China, and yet 
these are things which no one teaches." Such knowledge is 
simply " picked up " in daily experience, or from those in 
business ; by those who become experts in special lines as 
accountants, surveyors of land, etc., it is to be learned only 
from some specialist and brought to perfection by the long 
practice such as only this patient race can give. 

Higher Education ^Nith the Chinese occupies an indefinite 
period terminated only by the passing of the governmental 



32 History of Education 

examinations and the securing of a degree. Since theii 
higher education consists wholly in a preparation in essay 
writing for these examinations, the content of their schooling 
for this higher period can best be understood in connection 
with a description of the system of examinations. It is suffi- 
cient to note here that the sacred books having been memo- 
rized, it is necessary to acquire some knowledge of their 
content. This is done through a reading, practically a trans- 
lating, of these books, and more especially through a study 
of the very numerous commentaries upon them. Years may 
be spent upon developing the ability to write essays modeled 
in formal style and in thought content after the sacred books. 
This training is quite analogous to the prolonged drill in 
Latin prose and verse composition that prevailed so long in 
the English pubhc schools (see Chapter IX) and to a more 
limited extent in the early American college, with this dif- 
ference, that the literature used by the Chinese is the sacred 
literature of their fundamental religion and it is studied in the 
vernacular though it is not the colloquial tongue. 

The School System. — The institutional organization of 
Chinese education is twofold : there is, first, a system of 
schools, almost entirely of a private character and devoted to 
the mastery of the language and sacred literature and to the 
development of this power of essay writing ; and, second, a 
system of examinations, conducted by the state and serving 
as the controlling part of their educational system. 

Elementary schools, wherein is mastered the curriculum 
as previously described, are found in practically every village, 
are supported by private tuition, are patronized voluntarily, 
and are taught by unsuccessful candidates for the degrees, 
or by those less fortunate recipients of the lower degrees, 
who have found no office awaiting them. Schoolhouses 
there are none to speak of ; school is kept in any vacant 
room of a private house, of a temple or public building, most 
often the ancestral or Confucian temple, or it may be in a 



Oriental Edticatio^t 



33 



shed, or any covered nook or corner. School days are long 
and continue practically throughout the year. The school- 
boy, as also the schoolmaster, is sharply separated off from 
those of his own years and relationship. He must devote all 
of his time to learning, and is disgraced by any labor or even 
amusements such as fall to the lot of common mortals. In- 
deed, the task to be accomplished is so tremendous that it 
takes all the time of even the brightest pupil. Though the 
expense is very moderate, only a small number of children 
attend these schools, for such schooling has absolutely no use 




A Chinese School, from a Native Drawing. Boy backing his Book. 

in life except as preparation for the examinations and thus for 
the life of the scholar and the public official. As but one in 
twenty of the children who do attend school ever get beyond 
this elementary grade, and as a much smaller proportion ever 
reach the coveted degree with office attached, it is, from one 
point of view, the most wasteful system imaginable. For 
while it accomplishes the general social results desired, the 
effects upon the ninety-nine hundredths that fail is absolutely 
valueless ; and furthermore, this education unfits them for 
participation in any ordinary occupation in life, except with 
loss of prestige. Thus most of them must turn to teaching, 

D 



34 History of Education 

and, in a population where the struggle for existence is ab- 
normally severe, the profession that is held in highest honor 
becomes one of the worst remunerated and the most burden- 
some. 

Beyond the elementary schools there exist in the larger 
cities numerous or at least occasional higher schools where, 
through study of commentary and practice in essay writing, 
students are prepared for the examinations. Though fre- 
quently there are institutions resembling our academies and 
colleges, endowed or partly supported by private gifts of the 
wealthy or of the office-holding class, such schools are 
usually private enterprises. In addition to these of a 
quasi-public character, in a few instances such schools are 
supported by the government, or by the liberality of some 
official. Since the source of the funds is the same, this 
amounts to the same thing. 

The Examination System has been frequently mentioned 
as the central feature of their education. Since these 
examinations not only represent the dominant force in 
their education, but furnish the means through which the 
entire governmental and social structure is maintained, they, 
in connection with the Confucian religion which they incul- 
cate, are undoubtedly the most important institution and the 
most influential force in Chinese society. In truth, they are 
the means by which Confucianism and traditionalism, through 
their absolute control of the educated class and thus of the 
government, have continued to dominate so absolutely this 
large population and immense territory. 

In all its features, the schocl work is directed, not toward 
any needs of society, or even needs of government or of 
official service, but toward the passing of these examina- 
tions. The rewards of the successful candidates will explain 
how such a scheme can exert so great an influence on educa- 
tion, and its connection with government explains how it can 
dominate the life of society. 



Oriental Education 35 

From the successful candidates for the final degree, that 
of "entered scholar," or "fit for office," are selected all 
important public officials, educational and civil, from the 
imperial cabinet down to such minor local offices as are 
of such trivial importance that they go to those who have 
passed only the preliminary examination. He who obtains 
the preliminary degrees, of "flowering talent" and of "pro- 
moted man " is not without rewards. His are honor, ap- 
plause, and badges of distinction in dress in a society given 
to the adoration of form and outward embellishment. His is 
the seat of honor. To him is shown hospitality at all feasts 
and social occasions from weddings to burials and to such 
an extent that a considerable portion of his subsistence is thus 
gained. In a society where every form of approach and 
every action in life are regulated by custom, the reverence 
and the financial support of his kinsmen are his due. In a 
country where economic rewards and even the bare neces- 
sities of life are gained usually by incessant toil, a life of 
comparative ease and honor, with no manual or commercial 
labor, are his reward. There always remains the possibility 
of promotion, through fair influences or foul, to some official 
dignity with at least the opportunity, if not the legal assur- 
ance, of greater rewards. 

Not considering the preliminary examinations on the ele- 
mentary course that are often held, these higher examina- 
tions of three grades, are wholly under the control of 
government officials, composed, or theoretically so at least, 
of the pick of all Chinese scholars as previously selected 
through examinations of the same sort. 

Ordinarily the first examinations are held once in three 
years in each district city by the literary chancellor hav- 
ing jurisdiction over an entire province. The first day's 
examination consists of three essays, two on themes taken 
from the Four Books and one of a poetical type taken from 
the Book of Odes. These examinations, held in the exami- 



36 



History of Education 



nation halls or cells such as constitute the "universities" 
of this country, continue from eighteen to twenty-four hours 
of most exhausting mental labor. As out of the six or 
seven hundred candidates, or even, in some districts, two 
thousand candidates, only a limited number, usually about 
one in twenty, are allowed to receive the degree, this test 




Examination Cells, Imperial University, Pekin. 

must often be repeated four or five times, until the requisite 
number are secured by elimination. 

Some months later these, now termed the " flower of talent," 
repair to the provincial capital to be examined for the second 
degree, also held every three years. Now contestants often 
number ten thousand, of whom only about one in every hun- 
dred can obtain the coveted honor. This test, correspond- 
ingly more severe, but of the same character, ordinarily 
occupies three days and must be repeated three or four 
times. The examination compositions in prose and verse 



Oriental Education 37 

cover a wide scope and test the extent of reading, the depth 
of scholarship, and the skill in composition of the candidates. 
Again, the rewards of the successful examinee, the " pro- 
moted scholar," are largely of an immaterial character. " He 
adorns his cap with a gilded button of a higher grade, erects 
a pair of lofty fiagstaves before the gate of his family resi- 
dence, and places a tablet over his door to inform those who 
pass by that this is the abode of a literary prize man." But 
above all, he can now compete in the examination at the im- 
perial capital, or in a special examination held by the chan- 
cellor, the passing of which admits him as an " entered 
scholar" into the ranks of the favored few from whom all 
higher officials are selected. The proportion passing this 
examination, now thirteen day s„ in length, is much greater 
than that in previous tests, and the successful candidate may 
soon hope to become a mandarin and live and travel at the 
expense of the state. There are no age limits set for these 
examinations at all ; they are simply tests of knowledge 
possessed and of a certain imitative skill acquired. As per- 
sons often continue to try for these prizes throughout a 
lifetime, cases have been known of father, son, and grandson 
attempting the same examination. As might readily be sup- 
posed, for many the strain is such that deaths from physical 
exhaustion are not uncommon. Even yet this wonderful 
system of the selection of the fittest by elimination through 
examination has not done its perfect work. There is yet a 
higher examination, to which only the doctors or "entered 
scholars " are admitted to competition, and from which but a 
few, a score in all, are selected. Carrying with it no degree, 
but an office which ranks one above all governmental magis- 
tracies and practically constitutes one a member of an im- 
perial cabinet, this honor is the most highly prized of all. 
The persons selected by this examination constitute the 
Han Lin Yuan, the Forest of PciictIs, or the Imperial 
Academy. As an educational institution this academy pos- 



38 History of Education 

sesses only advisory and ceremonial functions, but its mem- 
bers are elsewhere given important governmental positions. 

From the highest rank of students the emperor on rare 
occasions may select one as the consummate flower of literary 
perfection out of four hundred millions of people and confer 
upon him great ceremonial distinction. Formal educational 
systematization could go no further. 

The following summary of examination statistics for a re- 
cent year is given by Lewis. There are 1705 matriculation 
centers where the preliminary tests are held; 252 centers 
for the examination for first degree ; 18 for that of the second 
degree, one, at least, containing 30,000 cells ; and one for the 
third degree. But 28,923 bachelors' degrees could be given 
to the 760,000 competitors ; for the somewhat rarer master's 
degree, or promoted man examination, but 1586 competitors 
were selected out of a total of 190,300. Not to mention 
the million or more that were preparing for the preliminary 
examinations, there were (1903) 960,000 men preparing for 
these examinations, of whom all but 1839 were destined for 
failure. 

Though these examination essays in their themes and in 
their content often contain high moral sentiment, the test is 
for the most part one of form. The following examples, 
among others, of themes for essays, are given by Wil- 
liams : — 

" To possess ability, and yet ask of those who do not ; to 
know much and yet inquire of those who know little ; to 
possess, and yet appear not to possess ; to be full, and yet 
to appear empty." " He took hold of things by the two 
extremes, and in his treatment of the people maintained 
the golden medium." " A man from his youth studies 
eight principles, and when he arrives at manhood he wishes 
to reduce them to practice." " He who is sincere will be 
intelligent, and the intelligent man will be faithful." A 
theme for versification was, " The sound of the oar, and the 
green of the hill and the water." 



Oriental Edncatio7i 39 

The character of these theme expositions, the chief excel- 
lency of all learning, will be yet further seen in the consider- 
ation of method. 

The Method of Chinese Education is that of direct and exact 
imitation. In the lower stages it is purely a training of the 
memory. " The object of the teacher is to compel his pupils, 
first, to Remember, secondly, to Remember, thirdly, and ever 
more, to Remember." The school of the Chinese is a "loud 
school " ; each child takes the appropriate text, and shouts 
aloud the passage until it is impressed upon his memory. 
When the assigned task is complete, he recites, or "backs 
his book " — by handing the book to the teacher, turning his 
back, and reciting the passage in high key and rapid speed, 
without any knowledge, necessarily at least, of its meaning. 
Again, "the attention of the scholar," to quote from Smith, 
"is fixed exclusively upon two things, — the repetition of the 
characters in the same order as they occur in the book and the 
repetition of them at the highest attainable rate of speed." 

Owing to their number, their peculiar form, and the very 
slight distinction between them, the method of writing or 
forming characters is necessarily a matter of most accurate 
imitation. Hence this knowledge is acquired altogether 
through the use of tracing paper. With time the char- 
acters are made smaller, as their use of the brush — their 
substitute for a pen — becomes more expert, and finally 
characters may be reproduced altogether from memory of 
form. 

It would seem that the writing of essays as the great out- 
come of this system of education possessed peculiar merit, 
in that it is a test of ability or. power rather than a test of 
knowledge. But this merit is in appearance only; for the 
ability is again wholly one of imitation. The one who can 
imitate the construction, the metrical form in poetry, the 
balanced structure in prose, of their sacred literature is 
the successful theme writer. It is as thous:h our whole 



40 History of Ediicatioii 

aim in school was to develop the ability to write essays 
similar in form and structure, and approximating in senti- 
ment, the Proverbs or Psalms. While the ability to imitate 
the form might without doubt be readily developed in the 
average boy, the degree to which corresponding ideas of an 
original character could be called forth can be readily 
imagined. Or again, the success of the average schoolboy 
of a few generations ago in rivaling Homer or Virgil may 
be taken as a similar criterion. In reality the aim of the 
entire training is not to develop originality, but to suppress 
it ; not to develop creative power, but power of imitation ; 
not to produce literary ability, but the ability of the clever 
versifier and parodist. Martin describes the method of this 
training as follows : — 

" The first step in composition is the yoking together of 
double characters. The second is the reduplication of these 
binary compounds and the construction of parallels — an idea 
which runs so completely through the whole of Chinese litera- 
ture that the mind of the student requires to be imbued with 
it at the very outset. This is the way he begins : The teacher 
writes 'Wind blows,' the pupil adds 'Rain falls;' the 
teacher writes ' Rivers are long,' the pupil adds ' Seas are 
deep,' or ' Mountains are high,' etc. From the simple 
subject and predicate, which in their rude 'grammar they 
describe as ' dead ' and ' living ' characters, the teacher con- 
ducts his pupil to more complex forms, in which qualifying 
words and phrases are introduced. He gives as a model some 
such phrase as * The emperor's grace is vast as heaven and 
earth,' and the lad matches it by 'The sovereign's favor is 
profound as lake and sea.' These couplets often contain 
two propositions in each member, accompanied by all the 
usual modifying terms ; and so exact is the symmetry required 
by the rules of the art that not only must noun, verb, adjec- 
tive, and particle respond to each other with scrupulous exact- 
ness, but the very tones of the characters are adjusted to 
each other with the precision of music. Begun with the 
first strokes of his untaught pencil, the student, whatever 
his proficiency, never gets beyond the construction of paral 



Oriental Education 41 

lels. When he becomes a member of the Institute or a minis- 
ter of the Imperial Cabinet, at classic festivals and social 
entertainments, the composition of impromptu couplets, 
formed on the old model, constitutes a favorite pastime." 



RESULTS OF THE CHINESE SYSTEM OF EDUCATION. 

— The statement of the aims of Chinese education previously 
made is a partial statement of its results. For it may be af- 
firmed that in a fuller sense than in any other system we will 
have to consider, the desired results are obtained. That for 
many centuries a nation has sought to maintain itself and 
accomplish its ends by education, and that the system of 
education elaborated was and is adequate to accomplish con- 
sciously formulated objects, is a significant fact. With Occi- 
dental nations, such a conception of education — one having 
social as well as individual functions — is of comparatively 
recent development. Yet this is possible because its object is 
negative. Not to develop the individual, but to suppress in- 
dividuality, not to secure social progress, but social stability, 
is its aim. This negative or static character of the goal ex- 
plains its comparative success. A stationary target is more 
readily hit than a moving one. On the other hand, in its 
social outcome and its influence on individual character, 
modern education works toward an ever changing, ever ad- 
vancing goal. It does not seek to fit an individual into a 
predetermined environment, but to develop in him the ability 
to determine in large measure his own environment. 

The most important result to notice is that Chinese education 
accomplishes its great purpose, in that it secures the stability 
of society, the perpetuity of the empire, the conservation of 
the past. " It is the consensus of opinion that Confucius did 
not teach morals for the sake of the individual, but to secure 
the peace and stability of the empire," says Lewis. Of the 
two great social forces, the one working for progress through 
development of the individual, the other working for order 



42 History of Education 

and stability through the subjection of the individual to cus> 
torn, the latter alone receives emphasis with the Chinese. 
The long duration of the empire, and the perfection and 
stabihty of the educational system which have been noticed, 
are sufficient evidences of the truth that here can be merely 
stated. 

In a second result, is found one of the important ac- 
companying conditions of this general status. The educa- 
tion appropriate to this great task has for the mind of students 
certain peculiar psychological merits, and other pronounced 
defects. While there results a very thorough training of the 
mind along narrow lines, the results upon the individual, 
though marked, are restricted. The mind is not symmetri- 
cally trained ; for while its retentive powers are tremendously 
strengthened, while there are developed the power of appli- 
cation to the mastery of details, the ability to recognize fine 
distinction of form, and the ability to imitate, there is a lack 
of power of initiative, of inventiveness, of adaptability, and 
of all creative functioning. The patience of this race, the 
exactness, both in scholarship and in details of common life, 
the power of voluntary attention, are thus results of their edu- 
cation. Of a certain kind of information there is wide appre- 
ciation, but most great branches of knowledge are disparaged, 
" Every department of letters," says WilHams, speaking of 
the classics, "save jurisprudence, history, and official statis- 
tics, is disesteemed in comparison, and the literary graduate 
of fourscore will be found deficient in most branches of 
general learning, ignorant of hundreds of common things and 
events in his national history which the merest schoolboy in 
the Western world would be ashamed not to know in his." 

While there is so much to disparage in the Chinese system 
of education, yet frequently there has been suggested by those 
familiar with it, a similarity to the schooling of the linguistic 
education that prevailed so extensively a few generations ago 
(see Chapter IX). In the fact that both are wholly literary, 



Oriental Education 43 

that both are devoted largely to the mastery of the form of 
the language and literature, that comparatively few get to the 
point of entering into the spirit of the literature, that with 
both the literature is in what is practically a dead language, 
that the school training is largely in formal verse and prose 
composition, in which form is made most important, since the 
youth is manifestly unable to rival the thought, and that all 
other branches of knowledge are undervalued and their rec- 
ognition in the process of instruction disparaged, in all these 
points the two present a striking analogy. Both aim at a 
disciplinary training which comes largely through the mas- 
tery of the form of a language ; in content neither has direct 
relation with the immediate needs of society ; yet, in regard 
to the actual processes of society, the Chinese literature bears 
a much closer relation than does the literature of the Greeks 
and Romans to the society of the eighteenth or nineteenth 
century. However, this is not all of the problem ; for the con- 
tent value of the classical literature is so much greater than 
that of the Chinese that when the general results upon the 
intellectual life and social development are considered, there 
is little basis for comparison. However, this further analogy 
is to be noted ; the disciplinary education based upon classical 
literature (Chapter IX) was, and is yet, favored in an aristo- 
cratic form of society where the forces of social stability find 
greater emphasis than those of social progress. 

While, as just noted, the content of their literary education 
has little direct connection with the practical needs of every- 
day life, in that it contains no arithmetic, geography, training 
in the practical arts, or study of the national resources, in a 
way it does have a most direct relation to their life. This is 
because their literary education relates to the form of con- 
duct and of government. The great art with them is that of 
conduct ; the scholar is the one versed in the most approved 
forms, and thus is fitted to become the ruler in society a^se 
the director of the conduct of others. ^^'^' 



44 History of Education 

Stated on the individual side, the same general result 
means the suppression of individuality. This becomes a most 
prominent conscious aim, and is carried out in the most 
minute detail. In his examinations, " his quotations in sup- 
port of his argument must not contain a flaw in penmanship, 
nor an error in recollecting a passage, and if he deviates 
from the orthodoxy of the great commentator he is doomed 
to failure " (Lewis, p. 128). In their versification the very 
positions of the ideographs are fixed ; in some essays even 
the number of spaces is marked by cross-ruling of the paper, 
and any deviation from the established form for thq sake of 
clearness of thought, results in " death to success." Thus 
imitation from being a virtue, soon becomes a necessity, and 
the man best educated and most marked for success is the 
man who possesses the least originality and can reproduce 
most accurately the ancient modes of thought and action. 

The aim of education being to reduce all life to conform- 
ity with the past, the aim of instruction being to impart an 
accurate and detailed knowledge of these forms to those 
who are to control society, it is the formal, the external, the 
prescribed, that comes to dominate in their lives. The fact 
that their sacred literature contains little of principle, but a 
tremendous multitude of prescriptions, has been previously 
noted ; life, bound down by external observances of these 
forms, gives little or no room for free moral sentiment, for 
individual opinion. As was indicated in the selection given 
(p. 21), the externality of their moral virtues is readily seen 
even in the character of the highest of them — those relating 
to the family. " All this do with the appearance of pleasure," 
is sententiously added. Acts have only an outer, not an 
inner meaning. Blameless and intentional acts are judged 
by the same standards. In this is found the chief occasion 
'of disputes with foreigners. The moral quality of an act 
ed^es not lie in its intent, but in its actual form, just as virtue 
(see,sists not in the spirit or the principle, but in objective 



Oriental Education 45 

manifestation. Thus it happens that the standards of con- 
duct, especially of personal morality, are extremely low, 
despite the fact that the teachings of their moral leaders are 
comparatively high. Through the absence of the principle 
of freedom, and the dominant idea of formal observance, all 
sense of shame and of dignity and of personal responsibility 
tends to be absent. 

Education, then, does not seek to develop human capacity 
or ability, but to store the memory with acknowledged forms ; 
where conduct is directed by precept rather than by principle 
the necessity for the development of ability to interpret rule 
is replaced by necessity for developing power of memory to 
retain a multitude of facts. The following summary of the 
results upon the individual is given by Lewis. 

" He can compose elegant Chinese prose, according to the 
fixed laws of composition. He commands from memory the 
bulk of the thirteen classics, which means that his conversa- 
tion and writing are punctuated with classical allusions. It 
is probable that he has the ability to compose epigrams, and 
epigrammatic couplets and quatrains. He is saturated with 
the family law and a knowledge of the five relations — the 
fundamentals of sociology. He believes that the ruler has 
divine right and the scholar has divine opportunities. He 
doubts not that China is the Central Nation of the world, not 
only geographically but intellectually. Foreign nations are 
to him barbarous, and rightfully should seek culture from 
Heaven's Country. Their brutal mihtarism explains their 
dominance. He knows the life story of China's rulers, sages, 
scholars, statesmen, and poets. He thinks he knows the prin- 
ciples of Cosmos, and the rules for unlocking its laws. He 
has at his disposal remarkable but rude astronomical calcu- 
lations. He has been taught to disdain foreigners with their 
'strange doctrines' and their disregard for 'propriety.' He 
is well-bred according to standards which are older than 
European history, and he hesitates to recognize as a gen- 
tleman a man who does not conform. If your manners are 
not his, then yours are not good manners. The Chinese 
literatus fastens his black eyes upon you, reads your char 



46 History of Edtication 

acter, sifts your motives, and thinks he makes an altogether 
keener analysis of you, than you do of him. He knows no 
rules of psychology, but without them may make a better 
psychological diagnosis than you do."^ 

CHINESE EDUCATION AS A TYPE OF ORIENTAL EDU- 
CATION. — The purpose of this somewhat prolonged consid- 
eration of Chinese education, is not to gain a knowledge of 
Chinese education alone, but to obtain a knowledge of Orien- 
tal education in general. Of this the education of the 
Chinese forms an excellent type. Many others of these sys- 
tems, of quite as great intrinsic and historic importance, are 
not considered at all. In many, if not most details, other 
systems of Oriental education present diversities ; but in pur- 
pose and spirit, and in general principles underlying the con- 
ception of education, all are in fundamental agreement. 

Oriental education represents a stage in transition between 
that of primitive man and that of Occidental peoples. In 
primitive society, education has not passed beyond the family 
and the rudimentary priesthood : in Oriental society, written 
languages are developed, literature becomes the basis of their 
higher or theoretic education, and there is developed a sys- 
tem of schools either independent of the priesthood, as with 
the Chinese, or in connection with it. In a peculiar way, China 
presents a case of arrested development ; while its educa- 
tional process has largely passed without the circle of the 
family, the family yet remains the basis of social structure. 
Their morality is little above that of family morality ; at least, 
its principles of family morality and family relations are 
simply projected on a larger scale so as to include all society. 
The environment of the Oriental is no longer the simple 
unorganized one of the primitive man, living yet in a genetic 
social order. There are now the complex social relations of 
the family, the state, the religious organizing of industry, of 

1 Lewis, The Educational Conquest of the Far.East, pp, ^53-4. 



Oriental Education 47 

commerce, of military activities, and a great variety of others. 
As a transitional stage, the great difficulty and importance of 
the mastery of the language is the most marked feature. 
Education becomes little less than the mastery of the lan- 
guage and of a very restricted type of religious historical 
literature. 

One other important aspect of this transitional phase is seen 
in the attitude toward the individual. Primitive ethics and 
education were unconscious of the rights of personality and 
of the importance of the individual. In both the ethics 
and the education of the Oriental, the individual has risen 
into consciousness ; but just as consciously society seeks 
through religion and through education to repress the indi- 
vidual. In theory individuality is hostile to social welfare. 
In their highest thought, as in the religion of the Hindu, 
the goal of personal development is absorption in Nirvana 
and thus the annihilation of the individual. Only with the 
Greek, or at best with the Hebrew in its later develop- 
ment, is there some thought of possible individual devel- 
opment not in antagonism to social order and social good. 

Thus there follows a further characteristic of Oriental 
education in which China is typical : life in its purpose and 
character, and education in its aim and processes are con- 
trolled by some form of external despotic authority. The 
individual has a place in society, fixed by some authority out- 
side of himself, to which he is predetermined. Education is 
simply the process of fitting him into this place. This 
formal authority takes various shapes, allowing now some little 
freedom, again none at all. With the Chinese, the social class 
lines are not wholly predetermined ; hence there is some 
shifting in class organization, and therein their educational 
system possesses a merit above that of several other Oriental 
types. The external authority here is that of tradition 
exerted through the family. The dominance of the family, 
expressed in Confucianism and worked out through every 



48 History of Education 

detail of social procedure, binds the individual to the author- 
ity of the past. In India this external authority resides in 
the caste system ; in ancient Persia it resided in the state ; 
in ancient Egypt, in a politico-religious priesthood. In none 
is there any room, save by chance, for the development of 
personality. Where there is opportunity given for the devel-^ 
opment of ability, as with the Chinese, all development of 
individuality is guarded against, and free expression of per- 
sonality finds no opportunity. 

The result of this dominance of external authority in their 
life and the development of an appropriate educational scheme 
to carry it out is twofold ; society becomes stable but remains 
stationary. Both materially and spiritually civilization is 
non-progressive. Thus it happens that in such societies 
education most readily accomplishes its purpose. It is true 
that this stabihty only relates to internal forces ; but when a 
people is isolated, like the Chinese, such an education is 
effective for a long period. Neither individually nor socially, 
however, does this stability give power of adjustment to new 
conditions. 

On the side of the inner or subjective life, it is the external 
and prescriptive that again controls. All that belongs to the 
free spirit is wanting, and in this the Chinese education is 
again typical. The art, science, religion, education, of a West- 
ern people is wanting, or tends to be wanting. Art becomes 
external decoration; literature an effusive formulation wherein 
merit is in style not thought; science becomes occultism, and 
discoveries are the result of accident ; religion becomes a 
mere formal worship, in which there. is Httle room for free 
personality ; morals are governed by utilitarianism ; education 
has no room for " self-activity." If to these characterizations 
there are marked exceptions, such exceptions at least indicate 
the all-pervading tendency. 

Thus it results that among most of those Oriental peoples 
there is to be found an educational system of merit, often of 



Oriental Education 49 

long standing and of most successful operation. Such systems 
show an accurate correlation between purposes and results ; 
but while they must be ranked high from such a basis of judg- 
ment, comparison with more modern systems must be insti- 
tuted upon the basis oi purpose. 

The rapidity with which the Japanese have modified their 
ancient social structure and assimilated the culture of Western 
civilization, chiefly by means of the adoption and possible im- 
provement of the ideas and methods of Western education, 
indicates the extent to which the characteristics of Oriental 
society are due to the established education rather than to 
inherent racial traits. 

Such a system of education aims simply to recapitulate the 
past, to sum up in the individual the life of the past, in order 
that he may not vary from it or advance beyond it. It 
aims to form habits of thought and action identical with 
those of the past without developing any ability to modify or 
adjust habit to new conditions. So far as instruction is added 
to training, it is without any rational basis. It is not instruc- 
tion in the sense that it seeks to interpret to the individual 
the meaning of a social custom. ^-At every point education con- 
sists in indicating to the individual what to do, to feel, or to 
think ; the exact way in which the act is to be performed, or 
the emotional reaction expressed ; and finally constant repeti- 
tion until the habit is unalterably fixed. This is education as 
Recapitulation. 

REFERENCES 

Laurie, Historical Survey of Pre-CJiristian Education, Pt. III. 

Lewis, The Educational Conqtiest of t/te Ear East, Pt. IL (New York, 

1903-) 

Martin, Lore of Cathay. (London, 1901.) 

Martin, Ttie CJiinese. (New York, 1881.) 

Martin, CJtinese Education, the U.S. Department of Education. (Wash- 
ington, 1877.) 

Smith, Village Life in C/iina, Chs. IX, X. (New York, 1899.) 

E 



50 History of Education 

Smith, Chinese Characteristics. (New York, 1894.) 
Williams, The Middle Kingdom, Vol. I, Ch. IX. (New York, 1893.) 
Wilkinson, Education of the Asiatics. (London, 1902.) 
The Chinese Classics, translated by Legg, in Max Mliller's Sacred Books of 
the East. 

TOPICAL QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY 

1. What further elaboration of the conception and aim of education can 
you discover in a study of the Chinese sacred literature? 

2. What educational value has the essay writing of the Chinese ? 

3. What similarity between this system of essay writing and the prose 
and verse exercises of the old classical education ? 

4. What inferences can be drawn from Chinese education concerning the 
value and results of memory training in education? 

5. What connection can be found between education and social welfare? 

6. Compare any one of the other types of Oriental education with the 
Chinese in respect to purpose, organization, curriculum, method, results, or 
relation to society. 

7. Compare the relationship that exists between education and religioii 
of the Chinese with the same relationship among any other Oriental people, 

8. Make a similar comparison in regard to the relation between educa- 
tion and the family. 



Chronological Survey of Greek Education 



Political 
Events 



First Olympiad 776 

Dominance of 
Sparta . 750-600 

Messenian 

Wars . 743-668 

Laws of Draco 629 

Laws of Solon 594 

The Pisistra- 

tids . . 560-510 

Laws of 
Clisthenes . 509 

Persian 

Wars . 500-479 

Athenian su- 
premacy 479-431 

Confederacy of 
Deles 477-450 B.C. 



Pc-TS, 
Dramatist^:, 
Orators, etc. 



Homer flourished 

c. 900 or 850 
Hesiod . . c. 700 
Terpander . c. 676 
Sappho . . c. 612 
Thespis . . c 536 
Simonides 556-46: 
Pindar c. $'2'z-c. 44 
^schylus 525-456 



Philosophers 
Sophists 



Thales . c. 624-548 
Anaximander 

c 6x1-547 
Anaximenes c.588 524 
Pythaaoras c 5S0 500 
Heraclitus c 525 475 
Anaxagoras c. 500-428 
Zeno, the Eleatic 

fl. c. 460-440 



Writings Fos 

SEssiNc; Direct 

Educational 

Significance 



Iliad . . . c. 85c 

Laws of Lycurgus 

c. 850 or 800 



Educational 
Events 



Parental duty 
in education 
in Solon's 
Laws . 594 

Origin of the 
drama cf. 556 



Age of 

Pericles 459-431 

Peloponnesian 
War . . 431-404 

Sicilian expedi- 
tion . . 415-413 

Spartan sn- 

premacy 404-371 

Retreat of the Ten 
Thousand . 399 

Theban su- 
premacy 371-362. 

Philip of Mace- 
don . . 359-336 

The Sacred 

Wars 346-338 

338 B c. Battle of 
Chaeronea 



Sophocles 495-405 
Euripides 480-406 
Phidias . 488-432 
Herodotus 

c. 484-ir. 425 
Thucydides 471-400 
Aristophanes 

450-385 
(Old comedy) 
Xenophon 434-359 
Menander 344-292 

(New comedy) 
Demosthenes 

384-322 



Gorgias 


c. 485-380 


Protagoras 


c 480 411 


Prodicus . 


fl. c. 435 


Socrates . 


469-399 


Antisthenes 


422-371 


Plato . . 


420 348 


Isocrates . 


436-338 


Aristotle . 


384-322 



Macedonian 

supremacy 338 
Alexander the 

Great . 336-323 
Battle of Issus 333 
Alexandria 

founded . 330 
Ptolemy I 

(Soter) 322-285 
First invasion of 

Greece by 

Gauls . 279 

Ptolemy III (Euer- 

getes) . 247-222 
Agis (Sparta) 

r. 244-240 
Cleomenes (Sparta) 
r. 236-222 
Destruction of 

Corinth — Greece 

a Roman 

province . 146 
Egypt a Roman 

province 30 a.d. 



Theocritus . b. 324 
Polybius 

c. 205-(r. 123 
Strabo 
c. 63 B.c.-c. 24 a.d. 



Epicurus . 341 
Zeno . . c. 350- 
Chrysippus 280 
Pyrrhon . . c. 



Thucydides' {'/'ri- 
des' Oratioti 431 

Aristophanes' 
Clo7ids 423 

Plato's Protagoras 

Plato's Republic 

Plato's Laivs c. 350 
Xenophon's 

Ecotwmics c 380 
Xenophon's Mentn- 

rabilia . c. 380 
Xenophon's Cyro- 

pedeia . c. 380 
Isocrates' Agaitist 

the Sophists 390 
Isocrates' 

Exchange of 

Estates . 354 
Aristotle's Politics 



Protagoras 
teaches at 
Athens . 445 

Trial of 
Socrates 399 

Isocrates 
establishes 
a school at 
Athens . 392 

Founding 
of the 
Academy 386 

Founding 
of the 
Lyceum 335 



Museum at 
Alexandria 
founded 250 

Euclid 
systematizes 
geometry 

c. 250 



Plutarch 

c. 46-120 A.D. 
Lucian 

C. I25-C, 192 A.D. 



Philo of Judea 

20 B.C. -40 A.D. 



Plutarch's Train 

ing of Children 
c. 100 A.D 
Lucian's Teacher 
■ of Orators, 

Anacharses, etc. 
Gregory of 

Nazianzus' 

Panegyric 379 



Imperial sup- 
port for the 
University 
of Athens 

A.D. 69 79 
University of 
Athens sup- 
pressed 

A.D. 529 



CHAPTER III 

GREEK EDUCATION. EDUCATION AS PROGRESSIVE 
ADJUSTMENT. THE LIBERAL EDUCATION 

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF GREEK EDUCATION lies in the 
fact that here first is found a developing conception and standard 
of life, consequently a conception of education which enlarges 
through successive periods and in which change is tolerated 
and development of the individual provided for. Growth or 
modification in social standards results from variation by 
individuals from formulated customs ; progress comes where 
such variations are not only tolerated but seized upon and 
made permanent if deemed serviceable. iFor the first time, 
then, in Greek education, is found a type'in which the indi- 
vidual is neither unconsciously nor consciously suppressed. 
On the contrary, some expression of individuality is thought 
compatible with, even desirable for, social stability and wel- 

The problem of providing for the individual such a liberty 
of initiative ana of judgment as will produce progress under 
a regime of social order and such an institutional organiza- 
tion as will secure consideration for the rights of all and 
hence secure stability, was first worked out by the Greeks. 
This is the problem of social life or civil society, and hence 
the task of education. While the Greeks did not solve this 
completely, certainly not permanently, they first attempted 
it ; and the somewhat qualified success of modern times in 
solving these same problems may cause us to be somewhat 
lenient in our judgment of their tendency to emphasize first 

52 



Greek JEducation 53 

the one extreme of absolutism or socialism and then the other 
of individualism. 

Political Development of Personality. — This freedom of 
the individual was first approached from the political side. 
The Greek city states were the first self-governing communi- 
ties ; even their kings, as at Sparta, were under the law as 
much as was the free citizen. Here the individual found his 
freedom in and through the state. Though it is evident that 
in the earlier period the claims of the state were somewhat 
exorbitant and oppressive, there were at least constant at- 
tempts to solve the ever dominant political problem of all 
modern times, — the reconcihation of the interests of the indi- 
vidual with those of the state. As Professor Butcher sums 
up this service to civilization, " In Greece first the idea of the 
public good, of the free devotion of the citizen to the state, of 
government in the interest of the governed, of the rights of 
the individual, took shape." Education among such a people 
has, then, the same function as with ourselves, and here one 
may see not only the first, but one of the most successful, of 
such attempts. 

Moral Development of Personality. — But political freedom, 
social equality, and opportunity for exercise of individual 
initiative in social life, do not satisfy all the requirements of 
free personality, nor were they all that the Greeks contrib- 
uted. Moral responsibility and moral freedom, as separable 
from the legal, political, and social obligations, — though less 
separable one from another among the Greeks than among 
any other people, — are quite as essential. The Greek mind 
was preeminently a secular one. The priesthood in Greece 
was not a dominant body, — was not even a permanent class. 
Its members were often elected, were sometimes women, and 
frequently were returned into the citizen class. Its function 
was largely liturgical and ceremonial, and very slightly theo- 
logical and pedagogical. It had little to do with the develop- 
ment of philosophy, literature, science, and education, or with 



54 History of Edtication 

the moral growth of the people. The growth of the abstract 
formulation of the moral sense with the Greeks came largely 
with their philosophy ; that of the concrete embodiment of 
moral responsibility through the city state. They sought for 
law or principle in the realm of conduct as they did in that 
of nature and of political relaiionships ; and if their ethics 
and morality found little sanction in a religion, the former 
reached a high state of perfection in their philosophy and 
the latter a high degree of effectiveness through their city 
state. One is in turn amazed at the subservience of the 
Greek as a free individual to the demands of the state in 
regard to many phases of conduct and in the devotion of 
his life's activities in its service ; and, on the other hand, 
astonished at the freedom of expression of opinion and in 
respect to those phases of conduct that have to do with 
personal morality. 

The difference in point of view between classical and 
modern civilization is here irreconcilable. One reason for 
this difference is to be seen in the very great scope of intel- 
lectual freedom allowed to the Greek. This is in marked 
contrast with the timidity and superstition of the Orient as 
well as with the conservatism of expression in the modern 
West where rehgious opinion seeks to control not only conduct 
but intellectual and emotional life as well. In respect to the 
second difference, the explanation is to be found in the fact 
that the scope of authority of the state among thq Greeks 
was almost coterminous with that of conduct, — at least in 
so far as it affected at all the conduct and welfare of others, 
— instead of being limited as it is in our Western civilization. 
Here the controlling laisses faire principle limits the authority 
of the state to that which cannot be settled without great 
violence by the free play of individual interests. Approxi- 
mating, then, the scope of religious as well as that of pohtical 
control, the state of the Greeks offered to them not only the 
basis for formulating their free personality in its political 



Greek Education 55 

expression, but in its expression of much of that which to us 
would have to do with religion and personal morality. Their 
task, then, as a people, was essentially that as conceived in 
modern times ; namely, the formulation of principles of con- 
duct into which the volition of the individual entered, and 
through which he rose to moral freedom by a recognition of 
his own moral responsibility. Nevertheless it must be recog- 
nized, as the greatest weakness of the Greek character, that 
they could not formulate an adequate sanction for such moral 
principles. Philosophical insight offered a sufficient basis for 
the few, — but only a few could approximate the moral gran- 
deur of Socrates and Plato. As the religious sentiment of 
the multitude was not sufficient, it was from the Hebrews 
that the modern world had to derive this one great element 
of free personality, in order to supplement and complete the 
work of the Greeks. 

Intellectual Development of Personality. — It is because of 
one other trait, however, that the Greeks become of supreme 
importance in the history of education. By the Greeks first, 
and in the fullest manner, individuality was worked out on the 
thought side. The love of knowledge for knowledge's sake 
found here its first devotees ; inquiry into nature, into man, 
into the natural and the supernatural here first was dared ; 
here the search for the nature of reality began. Here first 
knowledge ceased to be the handmaiden of theology, and 
inquiry the special privilege of the priesthood. No longer 
held in check by that repressive awe for the supernatural as 
characteristic of the East, the Greek lay mind was possessed 
of a curiosity, ever penetrating but not irreverent, and an 
imagination ever free but not inclined either on the one hand 
to irrational fantasy or on the other to gloomy mysticism. 
Plato's phrase " Let us follow the argument wherever it 
leads " is as characteristic of the intellectual bravery of the 
Greeks as it is foreign to the reverent, even superstitious, qui- 
escence of the East. Hitherto, as later in the Middle Ages, 



56 History of Education 

knowledge had been the secret possession of the priesthood, 
and the art of writing the symbol of its authority ; to the 
Greek this was the inheritance of the lay mind, into which 
he who would might enter. Not only did writing become a 
possession of the many, but a nation was developed that 
determined by lot among the city wards the productions of 
dramas that were to be presented to popular audiences, intel- 
ligent and critical enough to hiss a mispronunciation. 

With the absence of any sacerdotal class and with intelligent 
appreciation and inquiry characteristic of the common man, 
learning for the first time became a possible possession of all. 
Even more significant, education for the first time fell into, 
the hands of a class especially, or almost wholly, devoted to 
it. Naturally, at first, the educators are those who have pos- 
session of the knowlege of the written word, — the poets. 
Later the sophists and the philosophers, the wise men and 
the lovers of wisdom, become the teachers or inspirers of the 
young and the intellectual leaders of the old. 

The application of the intellect to every phase of life was 
the task of the Greeks ; it was they who first strove to live by 
reason. This was true of the moral sphere as of all others, 
and partly explains what has been said both of this great 
achievement in regard to the conception of moral personality 
and in regard to their deficiencies on the religious side. They 
first formulated the conception of man as primarily a rational 
being. As expressed by Socrates when as a people they 
came into full self-consciousness, the duty imposed upon each 
individual was " to know himself." In his rational nature 
each individual found the sanction for determining his own 
ends in life, and in his moral nature the conception of these 
ends as shaped by his own being. Through the realization 
of his own nature each must work out the things that life is 
to be lived for; science, art, philosophy, even religion, are 
means to this end and are to be made subservient to it. Con- 
ceiving the rational ends in life much more clearly than those 



Greek Education 57 

which depend for their realization upon the divine or super- 
human, the Greek worked out, as men have ever done, his own 
conception of Deity, — not a conception of perfection, but one 
of idealized, rationalized manhood, of mere human perfection. 
Hence there resulted the fusion of the intellectual and moral 
determinations of personality, similar to the fusion of the 
moral and political previously noted. 

.Esthetic Development of Personality. — One further aspect 
of the significance of the Greeks to education in their deter- 
mination of individuality remains to be mentioned. We 
have seen that the Greeks failed to reach a satisfactory 
solution of the relation of developed personality to the 
demands of social welfare on the religio-ethical side, such as 
is found in the ideal personal realization of service, love, 
self-sacrifice, furnished by Christianity. But in respect to the 
aesthetic development of personality, the Greeks have had no 
equal. To them first and beyond all others was given the 
power of expressing a general truth in concrete embodiment. 
For art is but the embodiment of some truth, ideal, or expe- 
rience, that has universal validity and has been generalized 
and then put into a concrete individual form such as can be 
comprehended by all. It then depends for interpretation 
rather upon the imagination than the reason ; it becomes a 
matter rather of appreciation than of logical understanding. 
This power the Greeks developed to the highest degree. In 
sculpture, painting, music, poetry, they created these various 
forms of expression which are called the beautiful. Even 
prose felt this influence ; for with the Greeks, as distin- 
guished from the moderns, oratory, history, and other forms 
of prose were not mere scientific products, but were forms of 
art under the patronage of the Muses. 

We have seen that the primitive man had little power of 
generalizing ; and that the Oriental, if he possessed such 
power, tended to leave truth in the generalized form, as with 
the Hindu philosophy, or concrete in moral embodiment, that 



58 History of Education 

is, in mere subjective form, as with thie Hebrew. The Greeks, 
on the other hand, possessed both the power of generaHzation, 
as is seen in their science and ..their philosophy and in the 
fact that the very conception of lazv or universal principle 
comes from them, and the power of making the abstract 
concrete in all their forms of art. The task of the Greek 
schoolboy was largely to give improvised musical expression 
as accompaniment to the recitation of the Homeric or other 
poems. This task called first for the appreciation of one 
form of art and then for the creation of another in harmony 
with the first. 
V-— Meaning of Greek Education. 4; To summarize, the signifi- 
cance of Greek education, then, is found in the fact that here 
first is worked out the conception of free personality realizing 
itself through social institutions ; that here is found the ideal 
of knowledge for its own sake and as the right of all instead 
of the privilege of the few. j Here one finds the individual 
constructing his ideals in life and striving for self-realization 
under moral laws formulated by his own rational processes.. 
Here individuality is defined on the aesthetic side, and pos- 
sesses the power of appreciating the general truths embodied 
in concrete form of reality, of which the highest expression is 
the art of so living as to embody in the concrete the general 
laws of moral life. With the Greeks, the high ideal of expres- 
sion of individuality in the realm of reason and the apprecia- 
tion of the beautiful was never to be separated from life, — 
from conduct. Hear their greatest statesman, Pericles, sum 
up the ideals of Athenian citizenship : " We alone regard a 
man who takes no interest in public affairs, not as a harmless, 
but as a useless character ; and if few of us are originators, 
we are all sound judges of policy. The great impediment to 
action is, in our opinion, not discussion, but the want of that 
knowledge which is gained by discussion preparatory to action. 
For we have a peculiar power of thinking before we act and 
of acting too, whereas other men are courageous from igno- 



Greek Education 59 

ranee and hesitate upon reflection, and they are surely to be 
esteemed the bravest spirits who, having the clearest sense 
both of the pains and pleasures of life, do not on that account 
shrink from danger." Or again, to quote a modern appreci- 
ation from Professor Butcher : " Greece first took up the 
task of equipping man with all that fits him for civil life and 
promotes his secular well-being ; of unfolding and expanding 
every inborn faculty and energy, bodily and mental ; of striv- 
ing restlessly after the perfection of the whole, and finding 
in this effort after an unattainable ideal that by which man 
becomes like to the Gods." 

From yet another point of view, the work of the Greeks 
was to determine the things in this life worth living for. 
Aristotle says that the aim of life is " hving happily and 
beautifully." And the best expressions of their civilization 
give us this knowledge, or at least indicate to us their reali- 
zation of this high ideal. Add to this the one great element 
since added to civilization through the Christian religion and 
the ideal now formulated for our life and for our educa- 
tional process is but slightly more advanced. Of this list — ■ 
political freedom, intellectual freedom and attainment, moral 
freedom and fife, aesthetic appreciation, and power of accom- 
plishment — we have made but one great change, that of 
substituting material achievement for the aesthetic expression 
of personality ; and this is a change that is not an unmiti- 
gated blessing nor an unquahfied advance. 

Since the aim of education, as limited in the work of our 
schools to-day, must eliminate the religious element, it can 
find no higher purpose than that of determining for each 
individual the things in this hfe that are best worth living 
for. Consequently no phase of educational history other 
than that of the Greek has more significance for the student 
or will better repay consideration of the means and methods 
adopted for securing these ends. 

Limitations in Realization. — While it is true that the 



60 History of Education 

Greeks formulated the problems of life and of education and 
stated their solution much as we would do now, yet we can- 
not believe that the Greeks worked out in the concrete all 
that is worth living for, else we should at this point reach the 
culmination of that evolutionary process, the survey of which 
we have just begun. If so our education, as with the Orien- 
tal, would need but be a recapitulation of the past and an 
attempt to recover what the Greeks gained. Yet in their 
ideals elements were missing. In their attempts at realiza- 
tion as yet in our own, there were shortcomings. While we 
yet fail to realize a portion of that which they realized, time 
has added some elements to that which they held worth liv- 
ing for, and modern times have broadened immensely the 
scope of that which they held to be but for the few. In 
respect to womankind, the Greek view was practically Orien- 
tal ; in respect to the future life, their idea was but little 
beyond that of primitive man ; in respect to the masses of 
mankind, even of their own race, they had not moved much 
beyond the despotic nations of the East, for nine of every 
ten Greeks were denied these high privileges of the free 
man. Then, too, in their concrete realization of their ideals 
there was much that is repellent to modern thought and 
morality. With their Oriental attitude toward womankind 
and toward the great masses of slaves and serfs; with the 
absence of all thought of the gods or of the future life as 
having to do with either motive for or outcome of conduct in 
this life, there could not but be very much in their lives for- 
eign to our very conception of morality. Moreover, their 
versatility borders on the insincere, even the dishonest, 
while their hght-heartedness often becomes frivolity and 
Hcentiousness. Their keenness in thought leads in time to a 
disingenuous discussion of terms and a hair-splitting logical 
activity as a substitute for a higher intellectual life-; while 
this keen appreciation of the excellence of forms leads to 
mere talkativeness and rhetorical show. Even their control 



Greek Education 6i 

of life by reason became in common practice both in Homeric 
and in later periods a control largely in the sense of prudence. 
There is often an entire absence of the sense of honor, of 
honesty, and of loyalty. The sense of compassion was hardly 
developed, as indeed it could not be when slavery prevailed 
to such a degree, when women held the position they did, 
and when there did not exist the mitigating effects of a reli- 
gion emphasizing moral conduct in life and rewards and 
punishments therefor after death. At Athens, even the 
reverence of the Spartan for old age seems to have been 
more honored in the applause for the act than in the obser- 
vance. The universal practice of "exposing" undesirable 
children, sanctioned not only by common practices but by 
their greatest m.oralists, argues a callousness to suffering and 
to the claims of the helpless that is almost inconceivable, and 
at the same time an inability to grasp the thought of person- 
ality with its inalienable rights as viewed by the Christian 
world. 

Greek Education as a Development. — The great significance 
of Greek education, however, lies in the fundamental charac- 
teristics previously enumerated. These, however, were not 
reached, even in their formulation, at once, and many of the 
defects enumerated were outcomes of later stages of growth. 
It becomes, then, of great importance to note the steps of the 
process in the formulation of these ideals and in the character 
of their practical realization. This progress is through 
definitely recognizable stages, each with its appropriate for- 
mulation of educational ends, means, and methods. It is in 
the tracing of this process, as well as in the analysis of the 
conditions actually attained that there lies the value of this 
study for guidance in our own educational activities. 

PERIODS OF GREEK EDUCATION. —The generally recog- 
nized division of Greek education is that into The Old and The 
New, with the division point at the Periclean age or the middle 



62 History of Edtication 

of the fifth century b.c. Based primarily upon the political 
periods of Greek history, this classification finds further 
justification in social, moral, literary, and philosophical changes, 
as well as in those relating to educational ideals and practices. 
Such a general division hardly suffices, however, to trace the 
educational development along the lines previously indicated. 
The Old Greek education of the historic period is preceded 
by the education of the primitive and Homeric times, of the 
character of which much evidence can be drawn from the 
Homeric poems. This " heroic period " is succeeded by 
the historic period of the Old Greek education which devel- 
oped along two quite diverse lines, best typified by Sparta 
and Athens. 

The New Greek period includes, first, the period of transi- 
tion in educational, religious, and moral ideas during and 
following the Age of Pericles. This is the period in which 
the new philosophical thought was developed, and the new 
educational practices were shaped. The second of these 
periods includes from the Macedonian conquest toward the 
close of the fourth century B.C., until Greek culture is 
thoroughly fused with Roman life. By the time of the open- 
ing of this "last period, the philosophical schools have been 
definitely formulated and during the period are organized 
into the University of Athens. In her intellectual life Greece 
now becomes cosmopolitan and ceases to have distinctive 
characteristics aside from the philosophical schools. 

THE EDUCATION OF THE HOMERIC PERIOD.— While it 

contained the germs of all the higher development, it was yet 
fundamentally, in regard to its form and in much of its con- 
tent, that of a primitive people. It was an education that 
consisted essentially in a training in definite practical activi- 
ties with no place for instruction of a literary character. 
Though noble youths are spoken of as having received in- 
struction in arms and martial exercises, and Achilles as 



Greek Education 63 

having had instruction in music, in the healing art, and even 
in rhetoric, this instruction amounted to httle more than a 
training by imitation, into which entered no instTiictiojt, as 
that process was understood later by the Greeks. The train- 
ing for the humbler needs of life — those connected with 
the satisfaction of the needs for food, clothing, and shelter — 
was given in the home. That for the higher duties of life, 
for the more general public service, was received in the 
council, in wars, and in marauding expeditions. 

The Twofold Ideal. - — The ideal of this education was 
simple, yet contained the germs of that of the later historic 
periods. It included the twofold ideal of the man of wisdom 
and the man of action ; the former typified by Odysseus, the 
latter by Achilles. Yet while these ideals were developed 
most highly in these separate types, the ideals themselves 
were not separable, but were to be attained by each free 
Greek. The description of Achilles's education, referred to 
in the preceding paragraph, makes this distinct for the one 
type. Phoenix says of this education : — 

" In all which I was set by him to instruct thee as my son, 
That thou mightst speak, whe;i speech was fit, and do when deeds were 

done ; 
Not sit as dumb for want of words ; idle, for skill to move." 

By comparison of this with the brief excerpt from the 
speech of Pericles by Thucydides given in a previous section, 
it will be seen that the foundation of their educational ideals at 
the acme of Athenian splendor had not changed ; and, as we 
shall further see in the philosophy of Aristotle, this union of 
thought and conduct, in a life of action guided by reason, 
remains the ideal in the highest formulation during the 
philosophical stage. 

Ideal of Man of Action. — During all the early, or pre- 
historic period, this conception of the trained or educated 
man is formulated only in a minor way from the point of 



64 History of Education 

view of the individual ; it is determined most largely with 
respect to the welfare of the group. The primary virtue of 
the man of action — the warrior — is that of bravery. At 
the same time their conception of courage is not at all that of 
modern times, or that of the chivalric period. The chiefs of 
the Iliad gave way to flight on very numerous occasions ; 
those that entered into the wooden horse " wiped tears from 
their eyes, and the limbs of each trembled beneath him." 
Similar expressions of what in later ages would be termed 
cowardice, though then considered as a feeling attributable to 
the gods, are related of Odysseus and most of the other 
leaders. So far as there can be given an explanation of such 
action as consistent with the high ideal of courage, it may be 
ascribed to the fact that their valor was for the service of 
the state or of their kings. This made permissible or even 
demanded a large admixture of caution and of the discretion 
that " might live to fight another day," which would be want- 
ing if the standard of bravery was absolutely fixed in the 
attitude and action of the individual without reference to its 
general object. We must note one other virtue in the ideal of 
the man of action, — a virtue which partially explains this 
somewhat anomalous character of their bravery, though it 
finds expression not only in battle but in every activity of 
life. It is that of reverence. The man who had no fear, 
like the man who had no shame in his dealings with his 
companions, or was insolent in his attitude towards the gods 
or his elders, was guilty of irreverence — that is, of a lack of 
proper balance in his actions. That the Greeks were far 
more sensitive to fine distinctions of all kinds than any other 
people has been pointed out by almost every student of their 
literature and life.^ Consequently not only in music, in 
sculpture, in architecture, rhythm, and metre, but also in 
regard to physical pain and matters of conduct, a proportion 
or harmony, — an avoidance of extremes, — the attainment 

^ E.g. Mahaffy, Social Life in Greece, pp. 25 et seq. 



Greek Education 65 

to the proper medium was the ideal. Though in a some- 
what idealized form, if we take into consideration those 
moral shortcomings of the Greeks that have been men- 
tioned, Mr. Gladstone describes this characteristic in the fol- 
lowing words : — 

" The noblestof all the ethical implications of Homer's poems 
is to be found in the notable and comprehensive word Aidos. 
It refuses to be translated by any single term of English or 
any other modern language ; indeed I doubt whether it had not 
abated much of its force in the classical age of Greece. It 
means shame, but never false shame ; it means honor, but never 
the base-born thing in these days called prestige. It means 
duty, but duty shaped with a peculiar grace. It means 
reverence, and this without doubt is its chief element. It 
means chivalry, and though this word cannot be given a good 
technical translation, it is perhaps nearer in pith and marrow 
to the Homeric Aidos, than any other word we know. But 
Aidos excels it in expressing the faculty of the mental eye 
turned ever inward. Aidos is based upon a true self-respect, 
upon an ever living consciousness of the nature that we have 
and the obligations that we owe to its laws. There is no sin 
that a human being can commit, withoutsinning 2igainst Aidos. " 

Ideal of Man of Wisdom. — Turning to the other side of 
the educational ideal, that of the man of counsel, or wisdom, 
here again the virtues were dominantly social in their char- 
acter. The chief element in this ideal was that of good prac- 
tical judgment — not merely good judgment in advancing one's 
own material welfare, but good judgment in the advice of 
one's fellows, in the service of the tribe or the community. 
The social point of view also in part accounts for the fact that 
into this ideal of practical wisdom there entered much of 
craftiness, — even of deceit, — which, since primarily for the 
common good, was permissible. Yet it is true that in later 
periods, even, in private life, this virtue of good practical 
judgment tolerated extreme^ of conduct in deceit and lack 
of strict regard for truth, that even the present materialistic, 



66 History of Edtication 

commercial age does not. The other side of this ideal of 
wisdom was the Greek ivJiole-mindeduess . In order that good 
judgment be exercised it was necessary that the desires and 
passions be brought under control. This control of the appe- 
tites by reason is the temperance or whole-mindedness of the 
man of wisdom ; it is the balance or harmony in thought that 
corresponds to the balance in action demanded by their ideal 
of reverence. 

Social and Individual Elements in these Ideals. — Now 
while these ideals both of wisdom and of action were domi- 
nantly social, yet large scope for individuality was provided 
for and the attainment of these ideals, especially in the aspects 
of reverence and whole-mindedness or free moral personality, 
was made more definite and brought into far higher relief 
than in the primitive stages of civilization of any other people 
unless it be the Hebrews. The Homeric poems are an evi- 
dence of this. It is when one considers the chief formal 
means adopted to attain these ideals that the emphasis upon 
individuality appears most distinctly. The center of Greek 
life as described in the Homeric poems was in the council. 
It was through the council that good practical judgment 
revealed itself and action was stimulated and determined 
upon. Through discussion good judgment was developed 
and temperance — the control of the passions — was acquired. 
The council became both the means for directing their social, 
political, and military life, and at the same time the chief insti- 
tution for educational ends. While action must be wholly 
subordinated to the state, it was only after free expression of 
opinion. Action must be social, but psychologically — on the 
side of motive and opinion — the individual became well de- 
fined. Here is discovered the means in the fundamental 
social institution through which individuality was developed. 
Custom still ruled as with all primitive people ; but it is 
custom passed through the medium of discussion, modified 
by individual experience, until it justifies itself in the wisdom 



Greek Education 67 

of the group. Since it was a fundamental principle with the 
Greeks, as with no other people, that custom must be reason- 
able, custom became modifiable through the rational experi- 
ence of the individual. The individual accepts as his guide 
to conduct, customs or principles of action, into which his own 
judgment and experience enter in a more or less conscious 
way. 

Hence, while the scope of the educational ideal was not 
yet broad, and the definition of individuality was not yet 
clear, here at least were found the basis and the means for all 
that future development which is now to be traced. That 
the basal ideas of all subsequent development are to be found 
in the Homeric poems is indicated by the fact that these 
poems formed the content of their intellectual discipline 
when education was formally organized into schools, and 
filled as well the function of a sacred literature with other 
peoples. Professor J ebb sums this up when he says: "The 
Homeric poems were simple and strong enough to be popular 
early, and mature enough in art to please an age of ripe 
culture. Boys learned Homer by heart at school, priests 
quoted him touching the gods, moralists went to him for 
maxims, statesmen for argument, cities for claims to territory 
or alliance, noble houses for the title-deeds of their fame." 

OLD GREEK EDUCATION was determined in its character ; 
and its organization by the dominant social institution, the l" 
cjty state. This institution, as the outgrowth of the tribe and 
council of the Homeric period, furnished the ideals and the 
basis of education, as did the family with the Chinese and 
the theocracy with the Hebrews. While there are evidences 
that it was taking shape in the Homeric period {Iliad XVHI, 
409), it appears full fledged only at the opening of the historic 
period. The city state grew up by successive amalgamations: 
patriarchal families grew into village communities, village 
communities into phratries or brotherhoods, phratries into 



68 History of Edtication 

tribes, and tribes into the city state. The bond that held the 
family together was chiefly that of blood relationship. The 
village community depended upon economic interests as well 
as the blood tie ; the phratries upon religious ties ; the tribe 
upon the communal ownership of land. So, too, the city 
state, in its beginnings as a union of tribes, was held together 
by this descent from the old families and the possession of 
land. 

Duties of a Greek Citizen. — To the virtues demanded of 
the free Greeks in the Homeric period was now added, in the 
historic period, the new element of property. This, with 
their descent from the noble families, constituted the " an- 
cient wealth and worth " of the Aristotelian phrase. Though 
confined at first to the heads of the noble families, the scope 
of this ideal of nobility or of worth was expanded until it 
included all freemen, as by degrees these were admitted into 
full citizenship. With the development of the basal social 
organization from family group, through tribe, to city state, 
there had gone on an expansion of the conception of virtue 
or worth. Each particular stage of development continued 
as a permanent relationship and demanded its appropriate 
obligations beyond those of the Homeric ideal, " the speaker 
of words and the doer of deeds." As the head of a family, 
the Greek citizen had to perform the duties of a husband, a 
father, a priest, an owner of slaves ; as a member of the vil- 
lage community, he added to these the duties connected with 
property, communal and family, and the elementary duties 
of government ; as a member of a phratry, he added to these, 
duties of a religious character ; as a member of a tribe, duties 
of a military and political character ; while with the forma- 
tion of the city state he added an expanding group of obliga- 
tions administrative and judicial, and of greatest significance 
of all, those of a wholly new character now to be noted. 

Worth and Virtue as the Aim of Education. — Through all 
of this growth, the virtue or nobility of a citizen, while condi- 



Greek Education 69 

tioned by his birth and possession of property, consists in his 
worth to the state. There is as yet no distinction between 
individual and civic worth. Now, with the formation of 
groups of citizens with permanent abodes, in conflict with 
similar groups, and governed by a nobility sharply distin- 
guished from the masses, the worth of a citizen to the state 
takes on an entirely new character. Supremacy is now to be^; 
maintained more largely by a superiority in intelligence, in 
moral judgment, and in such an appreciation of the finer ; 
aspects of life as would distinguish him from the base-born \ 
multitude. Thus it happened that in the Greek city states, 
especially among the Ionian race, there was evolved for the 
leisure class an ideal of worth or nobility more largely spir- 
itual than had previously been attained. According to this 
ideal, service to the state and superiority to the barbarians 
and the low-born can be shown only by attainment in those 
interests in life which the Greeks considered under the 
peculiar protection of the Muses — the fine arts, the sciences, 
and philosophy. Nobility now becomes worth or virtue in 
the spiritual sense as well as in the more practical material 
sense. Ancient wealth and worth in the sense of property 
and birth are now considered not so much the essential 
elements of nobility as presuppositions to the more spiritual- 
ized forms of wealth and worth. As Aristotle expresses the 
contrast, the aim of tribal and village organization is mere 
living, that of the city state is the good life. Worth in this 
sense can be attained, and it can be lost ; and at all times is 
to be maintained by a striving that not only is of service to 
the state, but produces with it, as the essential feature of the 
process, the development of free and clearly defined person- 
ality. This conception of nobility or worth is the bond which 
holds the city state together, gives it its superiority, and, at 
the same time, becomes the ideal attainable in the life of 
every individual. To produce this worth becomes the aim 
of education, whether viewed by the state after its interests, 



JO History of Ed2ication 

or by the individual according to his interests, though to the 
Greek in the " old " period these were indistinguishable. How- 
ever, it must be admitted as the fundamental characteristic 
of the old education, that they were indistinguishable because 
the worth to the state continued throughout to be dominant, 
and that in this worth the military and practical political 
services were yet of major importance. 

Spartan Education reveals the old Greek education in its 
most pronounced form. Here there was no change from the 
earliest clear formulation of these ideals, and no change in 
practice save by way of decline. In fact, after the definite 
formulation of this ideal in the constitution of Lycurgus, 
during the ninth century B.C., there was no more change in 
their ideal than in that of the Oriental type of education. 
This characteristic furnishes one of the evidences of the 
relationship of the early Greeks with Semitic and Hamitic 
influences. But if in society as constituted at Sparta there 
was no opportunity for the evolution of a higher type, there 
yet remained some scope for individuality since the code of 
Lycurgus was rather one of principle than one of precept, as 
was the case with the Oriental. 

Infiueiice of Natural and Social Environment on Character 
of Spartan Education. — This complete dominance of the 
state over the individual, secured through a system of laws 
which furnished at the same time the core of their educa- 
tional procedure and the structural frame of their society, is 
explained by the peculiar environment and historical setting 
of the Lacedaemonian nation. The Dorian Greeks, including 
the Cretans and Spartans, representing as they did the earli- 
est form of Greek culture in the historic period, replaced or 
conquered at about the Homeric period an earlier branch of 
the Hellenes, then in the primitive stage of culture. These 
Dorians had settled in the Peloponnesus as early as the 
eleventh century B.C., where, before the time of Lycurgus, 
Sparta had had some centuries of history of which we know 



Greek Education 71 

as little as of that of the Ionian Greeks previous to the first 
Olympiad. Owing to the constant danger of insurrection 
from the conquered tribes and of attacks from external 
sources, Sparta was little more than an organized garrison 
governed by the general customs of the Dorian Greeks or by 
those more highly developed borrowed from their Cretan 
kinsmen. This condition, precarious enough on account of 
constant warfare, was rendered even more unstable by the 
tendency of the Spartans, with the greater permanency of 
abode, to neglect their military training. Their peculiar system 
of double monarchy, which lacked the strength either of an 
absolutism or of an aristocratic democracy such as the various 
Grecian states later developed, had a similar influence. Xhje 
insecurity of their position was made more evident bjy the 
gradual disappearance through conquest of kindred /Oranches 
of the Dorians — the Messenians and Argives -— situated as 
were the Spartans, and by the growing, ^raxity of behavior 
and indolence of the people. At the. cime of the formulation 
of their customs into the const'icution there were but nine 
thousand Spartan famihes in tbie midst of two hundred and fifty 
thousand subject people. SJmce many of the free Spartan fam- 
ilies disappeared durin-s the latter centuries of their history, 
while the Periceci a>nd Helots increased, this disproportion 
tended to increase. With the decline of the monarchical power 
which had grow^i iip out of the early tribal organization of the 
Greeks, it was -^i^ften custorr.ary, as in the well-known instances 
at Athens of Solcn and Clisthenes, for a state to call upon 
some able ci'^izen to reform their constitution in order to give 
them a mo^ e stable organization, by providing for a wider 
participation of the citizens in public affairs. About the 
middle of the ninth century B.C., the Spartans had resort to 
this, custom and called upon Lycurgus to draft a new consti- 
tvition. It ',s not supposed that these laws were formulated 
fie novo by Lycnrgus ; rather, that he recognized and 
strengthenei old customs and at the same time introduced 



72 History of Education 

some new ones, especially those of an educational sort, from 
the related Cretans. This system of law or of education — 
since it was little else than a scheme for the training of the 
younger generation by the older, all of whom were compelled 
to devote much of their time to it — remained in force without 
modification until near the time of the Macedonian conquest, 
and though it then began to decline, it yet remained operative 
until the second century B.C. After this time its vigor much 
abated and only the remnants of form were left. The details 
of this system have been most fully presented by Plutarch, 
who is corroborated in the main points by Xenophon and 
Aristotle. On some points relative to government and to the 
e'-t<inomic distribution of land and property, Plutarch is now 
tl"i0U.^,:ht to have ^ "en led astray by the reforms introduced in 
the thiraXcentury by Agis and Cleomenes. 

Aim of Sphartan Education. — Determined by the purpose 
of this constitution, whicji sought to give the Lacedaemonian 
kingdom perfect self-su^fFiciency economically, intellectually, 
and socially, and complete '.independence in political affairs 
through unequ:;lc'i rnilitary^power, the aim of education was 
to give each indivi^'u.^ such'physjL-al perfection, courage, and 
habits of complete obedicace to the j.rsys that he should make 
the ideal soldier, unsurpassed in braver^y ^and become one in 
whom the individual was surA: ,*.k the citizXen. "There is one 
point," said Aristotle, "in wh^ Lacecia^Mxiovr'ans deserve 

great praise ; they devote much attention lo the e. -nation of 
their children, and their attention ta.-es the forirn oi a .ion on 
the part of the state." ~'' Successful bey c rid any nther scheme 
of extreme paternalistic education upon the ; the gov- 

ernment, the Spartan state possessed a stabii., ..i-;.a record 
of military achievement unequaled by any other Greek- stt te ; 
the Spartan man, a bravery, power, endurance, and seif->;on- 
trol that was often wanting, sometimes conspicu^ ; 

the other Greeks; the Spartan woman, a digni'y^ or 

activity in life and an ability to meet these oppo^) ai 



Greek Education ■ 73 

was denied, save in the early period, to women in other parts 
of Greece ; and the Spartan youth, a reverential and obedi- 
ent demeanor, a reserve in conduct, a stoicism under pain and 
habits of obedience that were possessed to a far less degree 
by other Greek boys. The reverse of the picture shows 
many defects. While the Spartans possessed a keen sense of 
humor, and while much of simple pleasure entered into 
their active life, there was but little place in their ideal for the 
" living beautifully and happily " of the Athenians. There 
was a lack of the finer sentiments and of Athenian sensitive- 
ness to harmony in conduct and especially to the amenities 
of life or to its cultural aspect. There was wanting a sense 
of sympathy, of interest, and of fellowship for others that 
isolation preserved long after this narrowness had tended to 
disappear among the other Grecians. While the Spartan 
was trained to be self-dependent when it came to personal 
conflict and personal needs, the definition of individuality on 
the moral side did not proceed far, because there was ever a 
complete subservience to the law ; and history shows that 
whenever the Spartan was removed from under the compul- 
sion of that law and the pressure exerted by the opinions of 
his fellows, his moral character revealed itself as insufficiently 
developed. In the intellectual and aesthetic aspects of life 
individuality was scarcely defined or developed at all. And 
finally they did not participate to any extent in the great 
artistic, literary, and philosophical development which was the 
glory of Athens. 

Organizatio7i of Spartan Education. — The concrete details 
of the Spartan system of education will well repay study both 
because it is efficient through so long a period and because 
it is the only example in history of an education that relates 
to every aspect of moral character and of social life in the 
hands of a sociahstic state that controlled absolutely every 
phase of the life of its citizens. 

The Spartan state, which after Lycurgus was governed by 



74 History of Education 

an aristocratic senate and a democratic assembly composed of 
all free men, appointed a general superintendent of education 
— t\\e. pcBdonomiis — and assistants. After a hardy training 
of seven years of infancy, during which time the boy was in 
the direct care of his mother, he was taken from the home 
and put under the charge of the assistants to the paedonomus. 
These cared for him in public barracks at state expense. 
The boys were here divided into successively smaller groups 
under charge of leaders chosen from older groups of boys. 
Of those under twelve, Plutarch tells us that in their exercises, 
" He who showed the most conduct and courage amongst 
them was made captain of the company. The rest kept their 
eyes upon him, obeyed his orders, and bore with patience all 
the punishments he inflicted ; so his whole education was an 
exercise in obedience." This training was always under the 
supervision of the elders. Of the boys over twelve, " the most 
distinguished among them became the favorite companions of 
the elder ; and the old men attended most constantly their 
places of exercise, observing their trials of strength and 
wit, not shghtingly and in a cursory manner, but as their 
fathers, guardians, governors ; so that there was neither 
time nor place where persons were wanting to instruct and 
chastise them. One of the best and ablest men in the city 
was, moreover, appointed inspector of the youth, and he gave 
the command of each company to the discreetest and most 
spirited of those, called Irens. A Melliren was one who had 
been two years out of the class of boys (eighteen years) ; an 
Iren, one of the oldest lads." 

This organization of the entire life of the boys consti- 
tuted the school. The family, the shop, the church, the 
social life of other peoples, all were merged into this one 
educational institution. The boys slept in pubhc barracks ; 
they ate at common tables; they assisted in supplying the 
necessary food ; they hunted wild animals under the direction 
of their Irens; they participated in the choral dances of their 



Greek Education 75 

religious ceremonies ; and finally all the remainder of their 
time was spent in the gymnastic exercises which constituted 
the chief instrument of their education. 

At eighteen the boy entered the class of ephebi, or cadets, 
where he received a strict military training for several years. 
For two years he was classed with the Mellirens who devoted 
themselves to the serious study of arms and to mihtary 
maneuvers. During this time he underwent rigid examina- 
tions every ten days and devoted much of his time to the 
instruction of younger boys. From twenty to thirty he was 
enrolled among the Irens. Then his training became but 
little differentiated from actual warfare, practiced during the 
intervals of peace at the expense of the Helots. 

At the age of thirty the youth became a man, only to con- 
tinue both the complete devotion of his services to the state 
and the training necessary thereto. Though he became a 
full citizen and the head of a family, yet he continued to 
reside in the public barracks, to eat at the common table, to 
serve as a teacher of the youth and a soldier in the field, 
faring the same as the humblest or the noblest in all the 
necessities and comforts of life. 

Content of Spartan Education. — Into this education there 
entered very little of the intellectual and aesthetic ; it was 
dominantly physical and moral. Plutarch sums up the con- 
tent of their education in these words : " As for learning, 
they had just what was absolutely necessary. All the rest 
of their education was calculated to make them subject 
to command, to endure labor, to fight and to conquer." 
Again he states the purpose of Lycurgus and hence of their 
education thus : " He thought rather that the happiness of a 
state, as of a private citizen, consisted chiefly in the exercise 
of virtue and in the concord of its inhabitants. His aim in 
all his arrangerr.ent was to make and keep the people, free- 
minded, self-dependent and temperate." 

There was niuch conversation and association with the 



76 History of Education 

elders, either at meal time or in the street, when they were 
wont to test the boys in repartee and ready speech, and to 
train them in ideas of justice and honor. Especially in the 
latter centuries of their history, some training in reading and 
writing was given. We know that they possessed some 
knowledge of these arts, for accounts were kept and com- 
munications of ambassadors and generals were made in 
writing ; but this training was given individually and did 
not constitute a component part of their national training. 
Through the choral dances and religious ceremonies there 
was training in music, for which there must have been some 
private instruction in the use of instruments. To a large 
extent their training came through the approved forms of 
exercises, — running, leaping, jumping, discus throwing, jave- 
lin casting, boxing, military drill combined with choral danc- 
ing, but above all wresthng. Wresthng required both the 
fullest exercise of the whole body, in which there was no 
over-development of the lower limbs, as in running, or of the 
upper Hmbs, as in the throwing exercises, and a training in 
patience, in the control of the temper, in quickness .of percep- 
tion, and in ingenuity in taking advantage of an opponent. 
Certain phases of Spartan training in endurance and skill are 
hardly to be termed gymnastics. It was customary upon 
frequent occasions to beat both the boys and the youths 
before the altar of Artemis with such severity that death not 
infrequently ensued. For similar purposes they tolerated 
the pancratium, though not to the extent of the other Greek 
states. This pancratium was a physical contest in which the 
contestants were allowed to resort to any means to gain the 
advantage of their opponent, even to the extent of maiming 
or disfigurement for life. This, however, was not due to 
primary love of cruelty itself, since gladiatorial contests were 
entirely forbidden. Hunting, their chief sport and occupa- 
tion of their leisure time, was at the same time a form of 
exercise quite as important as any branch of the formal 
curriculum. 



Greek Educatimt 77 

With all their emphasis on gymnastics, the Spartans had 
no gymnasium and no training of a professional character. 
The trained athlete and the beautifully developed physique 
— important objects of gymnastic training with other Grecian 
peoples — were alike foreign to their purposes. The resource- 
ful and handy soldier, keen, cautious, self-controlled, fearless, 
pitiless, inured to all hardship, obedient to command, respect- 
ful to authority, able to act in unison with his fellows, and 
with that disregard for death that was by the Athenians 
accounted as insolence — he was the object of the Spartan 
training. Their music and their choral and religious dances 
were used to develop similar qualities. Since these dances 
consisted of intricate movements often in full armor, they 
were thus accustomed to concerted action. Their music, 
which lacked all of the aesthetic emotional, even effeminate, 
influence of other Greek music, inspired to courage and to 
devotion. The "Dorian mood" received the unqualified 
approval of Greek philosophers. Plato, especially, would 
banish all others. 

Moral Tj'ainijig. — There remain to be noted certain 
aspects of their moral training beyond such as were the' out- 
come and the accompaniment of their training in gymnastics 
and music. In fact the Spartan system of education gives a 
direct answer to the question, " Can morality be taught .'* " 
One means by which the moral results were obtained was the 
fact that all contests were in the open air, that all the boy's 
education — in fact all his life — was pubHc. Hence the 
approval or disapproval of his elders was a constant > source 
of discipUne. The frequent conversation, either of an infor- 
mal character or supervised by the adult in two ways now 
to be mentioned and relating to moral or social questions, 
secured similar results. Plutarch describes the first custom 
in these words : — 

"The Iren, reposing himself after supper, used to order 
some of the boys to sing a song ; to another he put some 



78 History of Educatio7t 

question which required a judicious answer, for example: 
' Who was the best man in the city ? ' or, ' What he thought 
of such an action ? ' This accustomed them from their child- 
hood to judge of the virtues, to enter into the affairs of their 
countrymen. For if one of them was asked ' Who is a good 
citizen, or who an infamous one ? ' and hesitated in his an- 
swer, he was considered as a boy of slow parts, and of a soul 
that would not aspire to honour. The answer was likewise 
to have a reason assigned for it, and proof conceived in few 
words. He whose account of the matter was wrong, by way 
of punishment had his thumb bit by the Iren. The old men 
and magistrates often attended these little trials, to see 
whether the Iren exercised his authority in a rational and 
proper manner. He was permitted, indeed, to inflict the 
penalties ; but when the boys were gone, he was to be chas- 
tised himself if he had punished them either with too much 
severity or remissness." 

The other custom, one most characteristic of the Greeks 
since it tended to occupy the same place in their society that 
romantic attachments or those of sentiment and affection 
occupy in ours, was that of the relation between " the in- 
spirer" and "the hearer." The above quotation continues 
as follows : • — ■ 

" The adopters of favourites also shared both in the honour 
and disgrace of their boys ; and one of them is said to have 
been mulcted by the magistrates because the boy whom he 
had taken into his affections let some ungenerous word or 
cry escape him as he was fighting. This love was so hon- 
ourable and in so much esteem, that the virgins, too, had 
their lovers amongst the most virtuous matrons. A competi- 
tion of affection caused no misunderstanding, but rather a 
mutual friendship between those that had fixed their regards 
upon the same youth, and a united endeavour to make him 
as accomplished as possible." 

In other words, every Spartan adult was a teacher, and 
every Spartan boy had a tutor, selected through mutual 
esteem, bound together by no economic ties, but by those of 



./ 

Greek Education 79 

friendship and affection. Through this companionship usu- 
ally outside of the hours of regular gymnastic training, he 
received a further training in justice, in honor, in patriotism, 
in self-control and self-sacrifice, in honesty — though we 
may question their conception of that honesty which taught 
them to deceive and even steal for military purposes, as no 
doubt they would question our standards which connive at 
similar deception for economic advantages. In conclusion, it 
must be admitted that while the Spartan moral training con- 
served certain elemental virtues, its effects morally, as well 
as physically, had a hardening, even a brutalizing tendency. 

Other phases of Spartan education can only be men- 
tioned. As with no other ancient people, they gave women 
practically the same kind of education as men — yet with no 
higher purpose than that of training mothers of warriors. 
While with them there was an absence of those grosser 
forms of immorality characteristic of early forms of civiliza- 
tion and constituting a blot upon the fame of Athens, — they 
yet practically destroyed the family. While they possessed 
a sturdy character and the elemental virtues in a higher de- 
gree than did the other Greeks, they saw little of the beauty 
of life and possessed few of the graces of character. They 
have left us a type of education that produced physical 
strength, endurance, and stamina, the homely moral quali- 
ties, strength of character under a despotic system of regu- 
lation, and a citizen body strongly imbued with patriotism 
and a devotion to the state that encompassed every activity 
and every interest in life. But to future generations they 
have left little save their example. 

Athenian Education during the Old Greek Period. — Save in 
the simplicity of aim and in the means adopted for training, 
the old Greek education at Athens had little in common with 
that at Sparta. Even in these two general respects, there 
was wide divergence in the relative values assigned to the 
various elements in the aim and in the emphasis upon the 



8o History of Education 

various subjects of study. All that has been said concerning 
Hellenic ideals of life and that clear development of individu- 
ality worked out by the Greeks applies with peculiar force to 
the lonians and, above all, to the Athenians. At the very 
close of this early period Thucydides (Bk. II., par. 40) 
formulates the aim of their education in these words, put 
into the mouth of Pericles, and descriptive of the life of the 
Athenians : — 

" If then we prefer to meet danger with a light heart but 
without laborious training, and with a courage which is gained 
by habit and not enforced by law, are we not greatly the 
gainers .'' Since we do not anticipate the pain, although, 
when the hour comes, we can be as brave as those who never 
allow themselves to rest; and thus, too, our city is equally admi- 
rable in peace and in war. For we are lovers of the beautiful, 
yet simple in our tastes, and we cultivate the mind without 
loss of manhness. Wealth we employ, not for talk and 
ostentation, but when there is a real use for it. To avow 
poverty with us is no disgrace ; the true disgrace is in doing 
nothing to avoid it. An Athenian citizen does not neglect the 
state because he takes care of his own household ; and even 
those of us who are engaged in business have a very fair idea 
of politics. We alone regard a man who takes no interest in 
public affairs, not as a harmless, but as a useless character ; 
and if few of us are originators, we are all sound judges of a 
policy. The great impediment to action is, in our opinion, not 
discussion, but the want of that knowledge which is gained by 
discussion preparatory to action. For we have a peculiar 
power of thinking before we act and of acting too, whereas 
other men are courageous from ignorance but hesitate upon 
reflection. And they are surely to be esteemed the bravest 
spirits who, having the clearest sense both of the pains and 
pleasures of life, do not on that account shrink from danger." 

This, however, represents rather the outgrowth of the old 
education than the ideal consciously conceived during the 
period itself. 

The organizatio7t of Athenian education, controlled as it was 
by a different conception of life from that which prevailed at 



Greek Education 8i 

Sparta, was radically different from that of the latter. The 
citizen, guiding his life by reason, wise and judicious in his ^ 

performance of the manifold public duties demanded by the 
state, yet free in the disposition of his leisure time and in 
his interpretation of social obligations, as well as strong in 
body and brave in warfare, could not be produced by an 
education thoroughly controlled by a despotic socialistic 
regime, as at Sparta. Rather than to destroy the family, as 
at Sparta, Athens aimed to preserve it as a means of develop-V • 
ing and shaping personaHty, and upon it placed the burden 
of responsibility for education. If family pride, parental 
affection, and a sense of social obligation were insufficient to 
secure the proper training, the child whose education had :Jc.Juy . 
been neglected by the father was freed by the laws of Solon '^.^^^a^. 
from all obligations of support in his parent's old age. All ;1^j I'^aj,; 
schools were private schools; and the state provided directly 1^. .'^, 
for only that portion of education between the ages of sixteen 
and twenty which was almost wholly physical and a direct 
preparation for military service. This freedom in regard to 
schools was allowed to degenerate neither into neglect nor 
license. The state required a training in music and gymnas- , 
tics, and while the freedom and the privacy of home life were 
not destroyed, certain results were demanded by law and the 
process was supervised by the court of the Areopagus. This 
court had especial charge of the morals of the youth, and 
during the period it preserved its original authority, punished 
with severity grave breaches in the accepted standards of' 
morality. Though the Athenians themselves were occasion- 
ally guilty of great cruelty in their civil wars, Quintilian 
relates that the Areopagus condemned to death a boy who 
had gouged out the eyes of his pet quails. The officials, 
pedagogues, and the family of the schoolmaster were the 
only ones allowed within the schoolroom. The laws of Solon 
provided the penalty of death for the infringement of this 
regulation. Since the music schools, especially those for 



82 Histojy of Education 

the poorer children, were sometimes in the open, and the 
youtli in the higher gymnastic schools exercised with the 
adults, this regulation no doubt referred to the lower gymnas- 
tic schools. Even in regard to the palaestra, it is evident 
from incidental references in the poets that the law was 
not enforced in later times. Schoolhouses owned by the 
masters were quite common. The state may have provided 
some of the palaestrae, or elementary gymnastic schools, as it 
did, without any question, the gymnasia for advanced physi- 
cal education. While the philosophers and the leaders of 
Athenian thought in the later period agreed in their advocacy 
of a rigid state system of education, no approach was ever 
made to it, for individual liberty was ever prized too highly to 
weaken it through any approximation to a socialistic education 
or to jeopardize the constitution of society by removing the 
obligation of education from the family. 

_. The training of the child for the first seven years was wholly 
in the hands of the family. As at Sparta, this training was 
chiefly physical, since the chief concern was to secure a hardy 
constitution and a well-developed physique. As at Sparta, 
exposure of children was practiced, but as characteristic of 
the greater freedom allowed the individual, this was determined 
by the father instead of by state officials. Undoubtedly 
the practice was more corrupting at Athens, for at Sparta 
only those physically unfit for service to the state were de- 
stroyed, while at the former place much greater license was 
exercised by the father, guided as he might be solely by pru- 
dence, economic motives or mere indifference. Nor was the 
training within the family of as high a character, as a rule, 
at Athens. There the child was usually given into the charge 
of nurses and slaves ; while at Sparta the mothers retained 
the direct care and were famous throughout Greece for the care- 
ful physical and moral training they gave their children, A 
most interesting phase of child life, before the definite series 
of physical exercises in school life was taken up, is. indicated 



Greek Education 83 

by the fact that Greek literature mentions or describes a very 
extensive list of children's games, including practically all 
that we have to-day. So in the home, on- the street, in the 
country, then as now, the child's early education was uncon- 
sciously furnished. 
~Jj School life began at about seven and, for the children of 
the free Greek families, save those financially unable, contin- 
ued for eight or nine years. The age of entering, the length 
of attendance, and the subjects studied depended somewhat 
upon the standing of the family. In two respects Athenian 
education differed very widely from modern practice : in 
that the Athenian boy attended two distinct types of school 
throughout the period of his early schooHng ; and, in that 
the character of work of these two schools was radically dif- 
ferent from modern ones. The requirements of the state for 
training in music and gymnastics were provided for by the 
establishment of these two types of schools, — both of which 
the boy attended. It is known that the school hours were 
long, for a law of Solon forbade their being open before sun- 
rise and after sunset ; but it is not known whether the boy 
began attending the gymnastic school or palaestra before he 
did the music school or whether he attended both in the same 
day, nor if so, which was held in the forenoon and which in 
the afternoon. It is certain that for the most part they were 
separate institutions kept by private masters, frequently in 
their own homes. Music schools were often held in out-of- 
the-way nooks, in temples or other public buildings. 

During all of this period, from the time he grew out of the 
care of the nurse, the Greek boy was in charge of a peda- 
gogue, — a slave or servant, — who was intrusted with the 
moral oversight and general care of his charge. Too often 
one was chosen for this who from age, injury, or other disquali- 
fication was unfit for any other remunerative service in the 
household. It is evident that they were frequently ignorant 
and unrespected by their charges to whom they were but an 



84 History of Education 

interference in the pleasures of the street and of companion' 
ship. 

At about sixteen years of age the youth was freed from 
the care of the pedagogue, discontinued all literary and musi- 
cal study and replaced the training of the palaestra with that 
of the gymnasium, where he associated most freely with 
youth of his own age and with adults. Here he was taught or 
trained in a variety of exercises by a state official, the pcedotribe 
— and was under the general supervision of the sophronist, or 
moral overseer. During this period, while the youth was 
given much wider liberty, he was yet held under strict super- 
vision by state officials, especially the censor of morals ; and 
during the old Greek period the rigid character of their ideals 
was such that they were looked upon in the succeeding period 
as quite puritanical. In many respects they would be so con- 
sidered by us now. 

During the old Greek period there were two of these public 
gymnasia, the Academy and Cynosarges, erected toward the 
opening of the sixth century B.C., outside the city walls. 
Here in the midst of beautiful groves and extensive gardens 
or parks, the sons of pure Athenians at the Academy, others 
of mixed blood at the Cynosarges, passed two years in free 
association with elders and in the physical contests and social 
and political discussions that prepared them for the life of the 
Athenian citizen. The fact that only the sons of the wealthier 
or better class were thus prepared for the duties of public life, 
reserved the conduct of affairs for this class, and thus, in the 
old period, defended the aristocratic character of their life 
from the democratic tendency which later became dominant. 

The only intellectual training was this indirect one which 
he obtained from association with his elders. Through dis- 
cussion in the agora, conversation at banquets, attendance 
upon the theater and the law courts, he gained that knowl- 
edge of the laws and moral customs necessary to direct his 
conduct. Moral delinquencies that argued any lack of ap- 



Greek Education 85 

preciation of the responsibilities of citizenship brought him 
before the court of the Areopagus. 

Public Education of the Ephebes. — Having completed this 
two years of preparatory training and demonstrated to the 
officials that he met the moral and physical requirements of 
citizenshipj,he was enrolled among the list of free citizens, 
Jook the oath pledging fidelity to the state, the gods and the 
moral traditions of his people, was furnished in the pubhc 
assembly with his equipment as a soldier either by his father 
or, if an orphan through war, by the state, and exchanged 
the dress of youth for that of the free citizen. ', There was 
yet a definite training in the use of arms and in general mili- 
tary discipline before he assumed the duties and privileges 
of full citizenship. This was the technical period of ephebic 
or cadet education, common to all Grecian people, though it 
varied in length from two years (later one year, at Athens) 
to ten years at Sparta. As during the two earlier years of 
ephebic disciphne — that from sixteen to eighteen in the gym- 
nasium — the youth had remained under the control of parent 
or guardian, so for these latter two years he remained 
under direct control of state officials. The first year of this 
service was spent in barrack or camp life in the neighborhood 
of the city and was devoted to severe military training in use 
of arms and in the conduct of practical affairs of the state. 
In the second year this life became that of the regular soldier 
in more remote garrisons with the idea of acquainting the 
prospective citizen with the roads, frontier, and topography 
of his country as well as with the duties of a soldier. Some 
have thought that this pohce duty was performed by the 
ephebes for the city as well as for the country regions, but 
this is not positively determined. During the entire ephebic 
period, no small part of this training in pubhc service con- 
sisted in their participation in the religious and social festi- 
vals, as is depicted in the Panathenaic procession on the 
frieze of the Parthenon. In these festivals training in religious 



86 History of Education 

devotion and patriotism is combined with the cultivation of 
the graces of life and of harmonious physical development. 
The end of the first year was signalized by a public examina- 
tion in the use of arms ; that of the second, by a similar 
examination upon the duties of citizenship, which were 
thereupon assumed. 

Even here the process of education did not cease, for the 
life of the Athenian citizen was one neither of private enter- 
prise nor of private indulgence. On the contrary, the state 
demanded such services of the citizen that a life of economic 
activity for personal ends was hardly possible, certainly not 
to the extent common in modern times. The pleasures of 
private life, whether amusements in sports and games, atten- 
dance upon the theater, or social gatherings for eating and 
drinking, were controlled by the Athenians, though somewhat 
less. directly than by the Spartans, for ends that were social. 
The state and the entire social life became a school in which, 
although effort for physical perfection was not neglected, yet 
greater emphasis was laid upon intellectual and moral growth. 
Thus was obtained the highest conception of the elements 
of nobility or virtue that constituted the ever developing 
"worth" of the Athenian citizen. 

While this organization of education did not become clearly 
defined in all of its details, probably not even in its chief 
stages, until late in the old Greek period, it formed the full 
expression of the old Greek ideals and was a feature of Greek 
life during the fifth century. The definite training of the 
ephebes was the latest phase of this early educational devel- 
opment to take shape. 

Plato's Description of the Athenian Schoolboy s Life. — The 
entire training of the Athenian boy is most succinctly de- 
scribed in a paragraph of one of the Socratic dialogues of 
Plato : 1 — 

1 The Protagoras, Jowett, Trans., Vol, I, pp. 138, 139. 1st Ed. 



Greek Education Sj 

" Education and admonition commence in the first years of 
childhood, and last to the very end of life. Mother and 
nurse and father and tutor are quarrelling about the improve- 
ment of the child as soon as ever he is able to understand 
them ; he cannot say or do anything without their sccting 
forth to him that this is just and that is unjust ; this is honour- 
able, that is dishonourable ; this is holy, that is unnoly ; do 
this and abstain from that. And if he obeys, well and good ; 
if not, he is straightened by threats and blows, like a piece of 
warped wood. At a later stage they send him to teachers, 
and enjoin them to see to his manners even more than to his 
reading and music ; and the teachers do as they are desired. 
And when the boy has learned his letters and is beginning to 
understand what is written, as before he understood only 
what was spoken, they put into his hands the works of great 
poets, which he reads at school ; in these are contained many 
admonitions, and many tales', and praises, and encomia of 
ancient famous men, which he is required to learn by heart, 
in order that he may imitate or emulate them and desire to 
become Hke them. Then, again, the teachers of the lyre take 
similar care that their young disciple is temperate and gets 
into no mischief ; and when they have taught him the use of 
the lyre, they introduce him to the poems of other excellent 
poets, who are the lyric poets ; and these they set to music, 
and make their harmonies and rhythms quite familiar to the 
children's souls, in order that they may learn to be more 
gentle, and harmonious, and rhythmical, and so more fitted for 
speech and action ; for the life of man in every part has need 
of harmony and rhythm. Then they send them to the master 
of gymnastic, in order that their bodies may better minister 
to the virtuous mind, and that they may not be compelled 
through bodily weakness to play the coward in war or on 
any other occasion. This is what is done by those who have 
the means, and those who have the means are the rich ; their 
children begin education soonest and leave off latest. When 
they have done with masters, the state again compels them 
to learn the laws, and live after the pattern which they fur- 
nish, and not after their own fancies ; and just as in learning 
to write, the writing-master first draws lines with a style for 
the use of the young beginner, and gives him the tablet and 
makes him follow the lines, so the city draws the laws, which 



88 History of Education 

were the invention of good lawgivers who were of old time ; 
these are given to the young man, in order to guide him in 
his conduct whether as ruler or ruled ; and he who trans- 
gresses them is to be corrected, or, in other words, called to 
acco'xnt, which is a term used not only in your country, but 
also in 'many others." 

The Content of Greek Ediication : Gymnastics. — The most 
striking contrast between Greek and modern education is 
found, not in its organization, but in its content, especially in 
the importance given to gymastics. In the period of school 
life from seven to sixteen, fully half — and before the fifth 
century much more than half — of the boy's time was given 
to the palaestra. The entire formal education of the ephebic 
period, including the two years in the gymnasium and the two 
years' garrison duty, likewise consisted in physical training. 
And yet from all this the Greeks got much more than mere 
physical development. Moral ends were no less important. 
Whole-niindedness or temperance — the control of the passions 
and the emotions by reason — was thus obtained. Above all 
the coordination of thought and action, the fitting of conduct 
to precept, of word to action, was secured through this same 
training, and there resulted that harmony between the inner 
thought life and the outer life of conduct which formed the 
ideal of the Greeks. 

Games and physical contests were not indulged in haphaz- 
ard as with the modern youth, nor participated in by the few 
for the entertainment' of the many. Nor were the standards 
of excellence the same as modern ones. Success consisted 
not so much in the winning of the contest as in the evidence 
given of the proper form of the exercise, the graceful and 
dignified carriage, the control of temper, and of skill. Run- 
ning races were usually held in the sand or with lighted 
torches, so that it can be seen that speed alone was not the 
test ; and the great variety of forms of wrestling indicates 
that muscular strength was not the chief qualification, nor 



Greek Education 89 

development of it the aim. Above all other exercises, espe- 
cially above those forms that called for display of mere force, 
were prized such games as called for quickness of perception 
and evidence of courage or " pluck." Succeeding the games 
of little children there were used a great variety of games 
with the ball, and of contests in running, together with a 
multitude of children's games and simple forms of exercises 
or calisthenics. In the schools these exercises were organized 
into a more definite course of study called the pentathlon. 
This included in succession, jumping, running, throwing the 
discus, throwing the spear, and wrestling. Wrestling devel- 
oped into boxing, with the open palms of the hands, and into 
VciQ pancratinm. This latter was a combination of boxing and 
wrestling in which hands and feet, in fact any means of 
discomfiting one's opponent, might be used. At Athens, 
however, this was reserved for the older boys and was always 
under strict control of the gymnastic teachers or directors. 

The various forms of leaping developed a power of concen- 
tration of energy, as did the short runs. Both brought about 
a general muscular development of the entire body, general 
agility, and an increased capacity of the lungs. The long 
races resulted in power of endurance. Discus throwing and 
javelin casting were especially designed as arm exercises, 
though no form of exercise so developed poise and symmetry, 
the complete coordination in physical development, as did dis- 
cus throwing. This is evidenced in Greek statuary. Javelin 
throwing also trained in precision of eye and hand. It was 
in the great variety of forms of wrestling that their training 
culminated, for in this were combined the excellencies of all 
the former exercises together with a definite training in 
moral qualities. Nowhere else was there such a demand for 
agility, for concentration of energy, for endurance, for supple- 
ness, for quickness of perception, for ingenuity, for the con- 
trol of temper, for the entire subjection of the passions to the 
control of reason. This series of exercises was used in public 



mMMi 



go History of Edtication 

contests as a means of successively eliminating the greater 
number of competitors until the final contest was determined 
by the wrestling match. To these forms of exercise are to 
be added two others in universal use, — swimming and hunt- 
ing. The former was an accomplishment of every Greek 
boy, 1 while hunting was very generally indulged in as a form 
of training for the older youth that should bring out all of the 
merits aimed at through the pentathlon, in addition to the 
emphasis it gave to individual initiative. Hunting, however, 
on account of the unfavorable situation in a thickly populated 
and level country, could not be indulged in to the extent it 
was at Sparta. Consequently the formal exercises assumed a 
very much more prominent place at Athens than among the 
Spartans, who rather looked down upon the exercises of the 
palaestra and gymnasium as effeminate. 

MiLsic, to be understood in a much broader sense than is 
given in the modern meaning of the term, constituted the 
second portion of the Greek curriculum. " Gymnastic for the 
body, music for the soul," was their conception of an educa- 
tion. Music in this sense included all that came within the 
activities presided over by the nine Muses. Hence poetry, 
the drama, history, oratory, the sciences, as well as music in 
the more limited sense, came to be included within the scope 
of this term. It is in the restricted meaning, however, that 
it formed the larger part of the education of the Greek boy 
in the earlier period. 

In these schools the Athenian boy from early morning till 
sunset spent most of his time not given to the palaestra. 
The earlier years of childhood were devoted to memorizing 
the Homeric poems, with the addition of portions of Hesiod, 
and later in the historic period selections from the lyric and 
didactic poets. Beyond this memoriter work the tasks of the 
school consisted chiefly in explaining the meaning of words, 

1 This is in dispute. See MahafTy, Old G^-eek EducaHoir, p. 46 ; Bliimmer, 
Home Life of the Greeks, p. 126 ; various classical dictionaries. 



Greek Education 91 

phrases, and obscure allusions. After a few years devoted 
to the mastery of this Hterature, wherein the early ideals of 
Greek life are expressed in a form that had imperishable 
influence on each succeeding generation, the boy was taught 
to chant these poems to an accompaniment on the lyre. At 
what age this training in the use of the musical instrument 
began, is not definitely known. Plato states it as thirteen, 
though whether he refers to the actual practice or to the 
regulation in his ideal state, is not clear. For many genera- 
tions this constituted all of the intellectual education of the 
Athenian boy and, even after writing and reading became 
common during the sixth century, continued to form the 
major part of it during the old Greek period. However 
long it might take the boy to acquire the ability to play the 
lyre, mere technical skill was never the end. The task of 
the boy was similar to that of the work of the old bard. 
In fact the earher teachers were the bards or wandering 
minstrels, and thus alone of early peoples, the Greeks de- 
veloped their professional educators from a literary rather 
than from an ecclesiastical class. The playing of the lyre, 
in the school sense, continued to be this improvising an 
accompaniment in harmony with the thought expressed in 
the passage repeated. Here was demanded both an insight 
and understanding in the interpretation of the poem and skill 
and creative ability in the construction and performance of 
its accompaniment. In both respects, there was a demand 
for individual ability and initiative, and hence there resulted 
a development of personality quite foreign to any preceding 
type of education. Indeed it is to be doubted whether edu- 
cation as a process of developing creative power — • power 
of expression, of initiative, and of appreciation — has ever 
been given a more fruitful form. It is in this sense of the 
term that the Greeks expected and accomplished so much 
from their musical education. Many generations later„ 
speaking of their early education, Plutarch writes : — 



92 



History of Education 



" Whoever he be that shall give his mind to the study of 
music in his youth, if he meet with a musical education 
proper for the forming and regulating his inclinations, he 
will be sure to applaud and embrace that which is noble and 
generous, and to rebuke and blame the contrary, as well in 
other things as in what belongs to music. And by that 
means he will become clear from all reproachful actions, for 
now having reaped the noblest fruit of music, he may be of 
great use, not only to himself, but to the commonwealth ; 
while music teaches him to abstain from everything that is 
indecent, both in word and deed, and to observe decorum, 
temperance, and regularity." 




Greek Music School, from Vase Painting, about 450 b.c. 

This musical instruction was common to all Greeks, not 
alone to the Athenians, though it varied somewhat in the 
form of instrument and type of song used. To the use of 
the Homeric poems the Athenians as well as the other 
Greeks added other simple songs for recital at the table and 
more elaborate choral songs for festivals and religious services. 
Arisiotle says that " music was introduced by our forefathers 
for the rational enjoyment of leisure." It was by this means, 
then, that the Greek, especially the Athenian, developed 
those forms of worth or of nobility that produced the superi- 
ority of the free man over the lower classes, and of the 



Greek Education 93 

Athenian over the citizens of other Greek states. This 
purpose is never lost sight of. Music develops not only this 
power of appreciation and expression but it produces as well 
a harmony of soul corresponding to the harmony of the body 
produced by gymnastics. In this connection Plato says, 
" Harmony is not regarded by him who intelligently uses the 
Muses as given by them with a view to irrational pleasure, 
but with a view to the inharmonical course of the soul and as 
an ally for the purpose of reducing this into harmony and 
agreement with itself." 




Reverse of Same Vase. 

From this point of view it was that the Greek philosophers, 
notably Plato, in their theories of education, held that the 
state should most rigidly control the musical education of 
children through the selection of the song, the instrument 
to be used, and the character of the music. This indeed was 
the practice of the Greek states in this earlier period. 

The two accompanying illustrations of the music school are 
taken from a vase painting dating from about 450 B.C. by the 
Athenian artist Duris. On each side of the vase there are 
five people ; two pupils, two masters, and a pedagogue who 
has accompanied the boy to his master and remains to look on, 



94 History of Education 

to assist, or merely to return home with the boy. It probably 
is an exigency of the representation of the artist, that each 
boy has a master, for we know that a single master had many 
pupils, though most of the instruction, save in the chorus, was 
individual. On the one side the boy in one figure is learning 
to play the lyre, in accompaniment with his master, each 
having an instrument ; in the other figure, he is repeating 
a portion of a poem which the master holds in book or scroll 
form. On the other side, the boy is either learning to sing, 
or is repeating a poem to the accompaniment by the master 
on the flute, or is learning to play the flute ; in the other 
figure instruction in writing is represented, the master holding 
in his hands a triptych or folded wax tablets, and either cor- 
recting an exercise or setting a model. On the wall are hung 
musical instruments, flute cases, rolls and satchels for books, 
and on each wall a cylix or drinking cup like that from which 
the illustrations are taken. 

Reading, zvriting, and the literary element of education are 
thus included in the work of the music school. Reading and 
writing were introduced into the schools about 600 B.C., but 
long before this the Homeric poems were taught orally, as they 
continued to be afterwards. Through this means the Homeric 
ideals entered more thoroughly into the life of the Athenians 
than into that of any other of the Greek peoples. Filling a 
function similar to that performed by the Eible in the educa- 
tion of our own people in earlier generations, the Iliad and 
Odyssey furnished them moral guidance, aesthetic inspira- 
tion, and practical direction for every need in life. To the 
Greek these poems were but little less the work of inspi- 
ration than the Bible to the Hebrew and the Christian ; 
similarly, when made the basis of their education, this lit- 
erature was the source of all the arts and sciences. Though 
they contained much that could not but be of detriment in 
the moral education of the young, the explanation and use of 
such passages were much the same as that made in case of 



Greek Educatioit 95 

similar passages in the Bible. On account of this influence, 
however, Plato would eliminate the use of the poets altogether. 
This, however, was an extreme view and v/as called forth 
by the fact that actual practice had, by Plato's time, gone 
quite to the other extreme. The simple unified educational 
process connected wholly with the Homeric literature, pro- 
ducing as it did, by the close of the fifth century b.c, a people 
that has few equals in intellectual acuteness, in aesthetic ap- 
preciation, in creativeness, in breadth of view, and in the 
capacity for higher enjoyment in life, was supplemented 
toward the end of this period by an extensive use of other 
literary material, especially the works of the gnomic and 
lyric poets, such as those of Simonides and Sappho, and by 
the early dramatic writings. These new poets introduced new 
types of songs and declamations. To the extent that this 
occurred during the period of the old education, it must be 
remembered that this literature was of the highest type that 
has ever been produced, and that for generations preceding 
our own time it has been considered the very best material 
that the entire history of mankind has evolved for educa- 
tional purposes. But so far as the fundamental ideals of the 
people are concerned, they continued to be found in and 
presented to each succeeding generation through the Homeric 
epics. 

The full development of this literary element is the domi- 
nant characteristic of the succeeding period. Reading and 
writing are thus incidental. The higher moral results of this 
education were obtained in no small degree without their 
assistance through the possession of the literature, trans- 
mitted by the spoken word. The processes of reading and 
writing were acquired much as they are with us, or have been 
until recent times. The ordinary alphabetical and syllabic 
methods were used. But in reading there was much more of 
educational value than with us because of the important 
training in power of discrimination or in judgment in the use 



g6 History of Education 

of accent, and similarly, since the words were written continu- 
ously without a break, in the separation of one word from 
another. Likewise there was no punctuation, so that it was 
necessary that the child should get the idea in order that the 
reading might even be intelligible. After some years of this 
practice, much emphasis was placed on beautiful reading, 
preparatory to further work in declamation. 

Arithmetic, other branches of mathematics and drawing, 
were not introduced until later. So from such simple ma- 
terials — poetry and music — ■ were obtained these educational 
results, great though simple in their harmony. 

Dancing remains as the one element in the old Greek cur- 
riculum yet to be mentioned. This might have been included 
under gymnastics, but it is more than physical exercise and 
training. In a way it might have been included under music, 
for it is but the expression through rhythmical motion of 
harmony of thought. It differed from modern dancing in 
several respects. Since it was the rhythmical movement of 
the whole body, there was much more of exercise leading to 
harmonious physical development. Since it was chiefly 
religious or civic or military in its character, its aim was 
not merely the pleasure of the individual. Having these 
social motives, it possessed a thought content as well as an 
emotional one and a moral outcome as well as an aesthetic 
one. Such dancing for the most part was performed in com- 
panies, civic processions, military drill, or religious worship, 
or at least in preparation for these, so that it was a training 
in harmonious action with others. Dancing was the union of 
the harmony of thought and emotional experience expressed 
through music, and the harmony of physical development 
produced through gymnastics. Continuing the quotation 
from Plato given on page 93, regarding the purpose of music 
in education, comes this statement concerning the purpose of 
dancing : " and rhythm was given by them (the Muses) for 
the same purpose, on account of the irregular and graceless 



Greek Education 97 

ways which prevail among mankind generally, and to help 
us against them." 

Tlie Moral Purpose of Greek Education is thus indicated by 
the results they hoped to gain for the use of each element of 
its content. The quotation just given presents this moral 
influence as the purpose of dancing. There has already been 
noted the fact that the gymnastic education was designed to 
produce certain moral results, such as control of temper and 
the general subjection of the passions to reason; that through 
this training, patience, endurance, fortitude, courage, loyalty, 
devotion, and a consideration for the rights of others were to 
be developed. Concerning the moral ends of the musical 
education, a sentence from the description of Protagoras will 
bear repeating : " They (the music teachers) make rhythm 
and harmony familiar to the souls of boys, that they may 
grow more gentle, and graceful, and harmonious, and so be 
of service both in words and deeds ; for the whole life of man 
stands in need of grace and harmony." This entire speech, 
which Plato puts in the mouth of the Sophist, is an argu- 
ment to prove that virtue is teachable because the whole 
purpose of Greek education, as organized in their schools, is 
virtue. 

Such religious training as the Athenian boy received, aside 
from that given in the training for public religious services, 
wherein both hymns, choral dances, and elaborate ceremonial 
procedure found place, he got in the worship of the house- 
hold gods. In one sense all of this training in the school 
and the home had a religious bearing, since even the athletic 
contests were in honor of the gods ; but in another sense, as 
a differentiated interest in life and one connected largely with 
the life to come, the religious element played little part in the 
Greek boy's education. Less directly connected with religion 
than with most peoples, the moral education of the Greek 
adopted one other means quite unique. By the direct associ- 
ation of the boy with an adult, as a child with the pedagogue 

H 



98 History of Education 

and as a youth with the " inspirer," the Greeks brought about 
in a most practical way the moral education of the young. 
Subject to great dangers and abuses, this custom was never- 
theless productive of great results. While the pedagogue 
was usually a slave and hence often, though not necessarily, 
of inferior character, yet the moral conduct of the boy was 
carefully controlled. On the other hand, the relationship 
established later in life, while not so universal at Athens as 
at Sparta, was purely a voluntary one and established what 
the Greeks considered to be the only true bond between 
teacher and pupil, — sympathy concerning moral aspirations 
and mutual affection and affinity. Thus while the gymnastic 
and music teacher could give the boy the elements of these 
branches, the truly educative process, that connected more 
directly with the shaping of moral character, had to be based 
upon other than economic grounds. Though all his teachers 
united in giving him dignity of bearing and of breeding, 
becoming manners, grace of conduct, modesty, reverence for 
elders, and respect for laws, these special teachers furnished 
him a direct model for the formation of character which the 
boy must approximate through conscious and unconscious 
imitation acquired through constant association. 

The MctJiod of Greek Ediication finds in this custom its 
chief characteristic. So far as their education was an imi- 
tation it was not, as with the Oriental, an imitation of fixed 
form or dead custom, but of a living model, possessed of 
strong personality and stimulating to the development and 
expression of individuaUty. 

So far as it was a direct inculcation of certain qualities, it 
was by the immediate example of these virtues lived by the 
teacher. For the Greek boy education always had an attain- 
able aim, since he possessed a concrete, definite model by 
which to shape his character and direct his conduct. Educa- 
tion was not a formal, lifeless process, but a living of a type of 
life full of activity and pleasure, of expression of self and of 



Greek Education 99 

attempt at concrete forms of virtue made real to him through 
the conduct of an " inspirer." 

At the present time, when so much emphasis is laid upon 
expression, or the constructive and doing side in education, 
one other aspect of Greek method is of special significance. 
Greek education was first of all a doing, only in the second 
place a learning process. Early action was shaped directly 
by authority. Just as our schools devote most of their time 
to the shaping of the child's ideas by authority, so, too, the 
Greek schools devoted their efforts to the shaping of conduct. 
In these schools the boy learned to run races, to jump, to 
wrestle, to excel in physical exercise and contests, to play 
the harp, to recite poetry to the accompaniment of the harp, 
to read and declaim, to dance. It is all " a doing," — a forma- 
tion of habits of action. Only afterward does it become a 
learning. When the habit is once formed by exercise, train- 
ing must be followed by instruction in order to make the 
habit permanent by making it rational. Instruction then 
aims to replace arbitrary authority with reason as the basis 
of virtuous conduct. Instruction thus produces this harmony 
between the inner life and the outward action. The relation 
between instruction and activity or expression, as developed 
in modern education, is thus reversed. The Greeks held to 
the apostolic doctrine that if one does the deed, the knowl- 
edge of doctrine will follow. The relation of these two 
fundamentals to Greek thought is expressed by Aristotle, 
basing it, as he does, upon the yet more fundamental quality 
of birth, or good breeding, in this passage : — 

" There are three things which make men good and virtu- 
ous : these are nature, habit, reason. In the first place, every 
one must be born a man and not some other animal ; in the 
second place, he must have a certain character, both of body 
and soul. But some qualities there is no use in having at 
birth, for they are altered by habit, and there are some gifts 
of nature which may be turned by habit to good or bad. 



too History of Education 

Most animals lead a life of nature, although in lesser par- 
ticulars some are influenced by habit as well. Man has 
reason, in addition, and man only. Wherefore nature, habit, 
reason must be in harmony with one another (for they do not 
always agree); men do many things against habit and nature, 
if reason persuades them that they ought. We have already 
determined what natures are Hkely to be most easily moulded 
by the hands of the legislator. All else is the work of educa- 
tion ; we learn some things by habit and some by instruction." 

The Results of Old Greek Education on state and on individ- 
ual cannot be adequately described in brief terms. It may be 
summed up by stating that the Greek culture of the fifth cen- 
tury B.C. was its product. Here before individualism has 
gained full sway, but while personality finds free and full 
expression in the service of the community, the highest 
development of the individual under the full control of insti- 
tutional life finds one of its richest expressions in history. 
Nevertheless the limitation of Greek civilization previously 
mentioned must be borne in mind : while Athens had become 
a democracy, but a small portion of the population, one tenth 
at most, came within the qualification for citizenship. Slaves 
and the non-Athenians had no portion in this. Again, those 
customs of the Greeks, such as exposure of infants, cruelty to 
slaves and captives, subjection of women, and others quite as 
repugnant to modern ideas, were decided limitations. But of 
the free population itself, of the general status of society, the 
following estimate of Professor Mahaffy is well within the 
limits of sober modern appreciation : — 

" No doubt the Athenian public was by no means so 
learned as we moderns are; they were ignorant of many 
sciences, of much history — in short, of a thousand results 
of civilisation, which have since accrued. But in civihsation 
itself, in mental power, in quickness of comprehension, in 
correctness of taste, in accuracy of judgment, no modern 
nation, however well instructed, has been able to equal by 
laboured acquirements the inborn genius of the Greeks. Let 



Greek Educatioii tqi 

me add that no modern theology has taught higher -^nsd^Ipurer 
moral notions than those of yEschylus and his schoo.i, .^'cvse*- 
oped afterwards by Socrates and Plato." 

A stable, free, and vigorous social organization was de'ijel- 
oped ; the first in which stability is not purchased at the 
price of the suppression of the individual. Individuality 
found expression in almost all those forms of activity that 
are valued in modern life as interests that are worthy of 
man's fullest devotion. The Greeks possessed the ability, 
rare among the most favored modern nations, of using the 
ordinary activities of life or the services necessary to society 
for the development of the individuality of its citizens. Evi- 
denced in every phase of their life, this characteristic was 
nowhere more strikingly expressed than in the games and 
gymnastic exercises. There was nothing compulsory about 
these contests in games between the various Greek states or 
the citizens of a given state. They were of rvo pt-actical \dX\XQ. 
to the state, or even to the citizen. They formed no prep- 
aration for war or for any immediate service to the state. 
They were but expressions of the personality of the citizen. 
Through them the individual declared his freedom from the 
limitations imposed upon man by nature and indicated his 
superiority over his fellows. For this he received no reward 
save the plaudits of the multitude and the esteem of his 
associates due to one who had thus achieved some form of 
personal excellence. 

In place of the extremely realistic interpretation of the 
elements of virtue or nobility characteristic of the earlier 
ages, by the close of this period, and as a product of. its 
education, worth has become a purely moral quality. While 
noble birth and wealth continue in ordinary thought to be a 
presupposition of virtue, in their highest thought it transcends 
all material qualifications. Euripides, one of the greatest 
products of this century and of this education, expresses this 
view in his Electra: — 




History of Jiducatioji 



e is 'bo plummet line to measure excellence, for the 
v?^^^va)rv^-iig''>iaitures of men confuse our reckoning. Oft have I 
c'-^en the son of an honourable father nothing worth, and 
again good children sprung from evil parents ; I have seen 
'leafi'ness in the soul of the rich, and a large heart in the body 
,.,,^. of the poor. How then can we surely discriminate the good ? 
^* Is it by the test of wealth ? Then should we indeed employ 
an unjust judge. Is it by poverty .-' But this too has its 
weakness, and makes men mean by its necessities. Shall I 
take the test of arms .'' Who, looking to the array of battle 
could testify to real worth .'' It is better to leave these things 
undetermined ; for here is a man, not great among his fellows 
nor supported by the pride of family, yet he has been found 
among the crowd a man of the most sterling worth. Will 
not ye learn wisdom, that speculate, full of vain theories, and 
will ye not judge men by personal experience, and the noble 
by their characters .-' " 

NEW GREEK EDUCATION: TRANSITIONAL PERIOD. 

Character of the Period. — The old Greek education resulted 
during the fifth century b.c. in a briUiant period of personal 
achievement and national progress which has never been 
surpassed in history. The culmination of this period was 
the Age of Pericles. During and immediately preceding 
this period, the highest products of Greek civihzation were 
attained. In politics such men as Themistocles and Pericles 
controlled her destinies ; in art the work of Phidias and 
Myron and the construction of the Parthenon are evidences 
of their taste and their achievement. Herodotus and Thucyd- 
ides laid the foundation of the science, though to the Greeks 
• it was an art, of historical writing. The tragic drama reached 
its perfection in the work of ^Eschylus, Sophocles, and 
Euripides, and comedy in the plays of Aristophanes. In 
every aspect of human activity and human thought there was 
a similar endeavor at creation and an achievement that is 
beyond comparison with that of preceding historic periods. 
But this period of fruition was as well one of transition and 
of origins. While the old education laid the foundation for 



't^P^ ^^If^ Education 'i 103 

these achievet^«_;§i^j@j^ijpa§ insufficient to meet the demands 
of the times ^ig]^t%^^er inadequate for future needs. 
The Hfe of thi^l^^^^^q^^e so much greater demands upon 
the individual /^cg^i^^^^o much greater opportunities for 
personal achie\^|[g55j;jjj^^la^^t demanded an education suited 
to the period, f«lt^|igS^^-«^9Mf^ the chief emphasis was laid 
upon individua^l^ij^^^I^^jTj, rather than upon service to 
the city state |^n^^tj^3]^|^^& individual was not merged in 
the citizen. Tdateosesv^^i^g) ^^is demand was the new Greek 

Education. ^i^i^i<Ig.in9Btfe)b 

Transitional FoT^j^jt)$^T?i^^§g)J^ere at work in Greek society 
during the fifth cen)^|jh^^]yf^p-Qof forces that need to be 
mentioned for us to i^t)f^g^ta^i^y^f n^ature of the new Greek 
education. Some ofiijy^^ffjia}^^^. (^qpsidered as causes of 
the new education, somjei^eyi^^ji^nil^^ ^o ^^ extent, as a 
result : all were a part Qbgl^^-^ffttgiCfTi^fal change in the 
character of life. \^ Mgifitibqoi.arfJ \j 

Political. — The most f und^fj^lg^^l^^g^gausal changes 
was political. Toward the close,-^:^^^^^i^^jgf^^ury the old 
aristocratic constitution of Solon »5^fetW§f^fi^^^9fi ^•'^•) ^Y 
the democratic one of Chsthenes, wj^.j^; ig^^jttefljjtg-jCitizen- 
ship all the free inhabitants of Attica. -^ T^«^e;<7fli$^^^^^ed in 
the popular law courts or assemblies. M'SJ^fo^^^ifll^l^l^^^'^ 
were to be chosen by lot as in the case of .[^|)(-j^q^ff^^iijiY. 
To the popular assembly was given the '^c>^fi^^^M'i,^;i.\i<v 
or banish by secret ballot, any citizen considered^d^^gjaru.'^ 
to the public welfare. Under this system of fn^^- §*^v^"^ 
ment the political power, the material prosperity, t^t/rj^^.*.- 
culture of the citizens increased with rapid strides. Ur 
this government, too, the hordes of the Persians were 
come in the short period from 500-479 b.c, with the resulit^f 
enhancing the prestige of Athens, the power of the peo| 
and of increasing the demands for opportunities for iiji 
vidual effort and achievement. These demands were pa'^ 
met by the greater concessions to the democracy made bv 





I04 ^ History of EdiA 

Pericles. ' The growth of democracj^^'h^t^fc'fttliri the triumph 
of the trading and commercial clti^iW^.^^lTO^'were now pos- 
sessed of the rights of citizenship^^^#ff4iM9iS^fe?lult of opening 
up a great variety of new opportuiiir^^^fo? iMj|vidual advance. 




Leisure time with its resulting' ^O|ip0,rt¥i3{i5^ now came to 
depend upon wealth. Wealth ^^ttftf'cBiiWrbe acquired by 
all with the requisite ability, an^F'^KB^'^ft'^Ming- privileges of 
citizenship were no longer the ^6ys6^M^MW^ Class restricted 
in numbers and in initiative. '-^-^ °^ "'^^."^^."^^^i ' 

A further change of fundamental ql^^act'er grew out of 
the successful leadership of 'Att?i^s^ dirw6^"^the Persian wars 
in the formation of the rMfkfi"rfe^M^^('477 b.c). At the 
close of the war this'^feag^fe^^WSy^fconverted into what 
amounted to an empiPe; ^S'^^flid^'^W&suries of the league 
were converted into^'^nfef'S^a Ify^e city of Athens for 
its own glorificatio^^fi?^^?(^lil^fo(l''between the close of the 
Persian War and ®l^i$>^eningii0f the war between Athens and 
Sparta, the d^i^^^^'^^A'flifens was the imperial master 
of all the sift?itfi^^it#^ltfe^%nd island states of the vEgean 
and of th^SM'i^^'SMte^/^f^ Asia Minor. This mastery was 
not gairf^d^^" J©*^ itetT^y statesmanship ; and by diplomacy 
this l^i^^?^Q^4p kept. In the management of these 
affaffl%5"^^l|^,j^t#lfriination of pohcies in the assemblies, in 
tll¥^tclW?&P9M#isbursement of the funds there was called 
;,'f#"W'/f^"'t^i'^^^^nir.n state an- entirely new type of worth in 
tlS'fe'''«^^M9.steThe political skill and argumentative and per- 
^ltl^rv»g '^g^ity that hitherto had found scope only in the 
§o4riSil%nd the assemblies and courts of restricted powers, 
i^^^i" ft)und a field for exercise if not world-wide in extent at 
lM.;it possessing all the inherent possibilities for developing 
t8f^ powers of political leadership and statecraft found in 

;ftiplex modern societies. The old education had afforded 

•preparation ti,r this new life. 
ocial and Economic. — Through the leadership in the Per- 
sian War and in the Delian league, Athens had now become 



Greek Education I05 

the head of the common- brotherhood of the Greek people. 
In the growing interchange of ideas, disseminated by traders, 
by pohtical embassies, by travelers, who now became very 
numerous, and by an altogether new class of teachers, — the 
sophists, — that now came to possess formidable influence, 
this common brotherhood was cemented. But it is a com- 
munity of ideas and of $ocial life which results in the coming 
centuries in a common Greek civilization no longer peculiar 
to Athens or to chosen cities, but to the race as a whole. At 
the same time the political unity and even political indepen- 
dence is lost through most disgraceful civil strifes and local 
wars, until the old regime is replaced by a unity in govern- 
ment imposed from without. 

This merging of Athenian life into the greater unity of a 
Greek life as a whole, this extension of the economic inter- 
ests leading to a toleration of foreign tracers and an increas- 
ing tendency upon the part of Athenian citizens to visit 
foreign marts, this sending of embassies, and the new custom 
among the Athenians of visiting foreign or other Grecian 
lands for mere curiosity's sake, led to- a much broader toler- 
ance of novel ideas and strange practices than had ever been 
the case before.^ Tolerance of new ideas led to criticism of 
old ones, and finally to modification or rejection of much that 
had been characteristic or even fundamental in previous, 
periods. Athens, from being a conservative, isolated town, 
now became a community situated in "the highway of the 
world," and a meeting ground for all novel ideas. That 
there was a breaking up of old customs, and that the conser- 
vative forces were aghast at the revolution, is not to be mar- 
veled at,__]^ 

Litei-ary. — A change that is not so much a cause as it is 
an indication of the deep-seated modifications in the thought 
hfe of the Athenian people, is to be found in the character 
of their literature. The earlier half of the fifth century was 
dominated in literature by the tragedy. This form of the 



io6 History of Education 

drama dealt with fundamental ethical, social, and religious 
problems ; its characters were the gods and mythical heroes ; 
its form was that of the highest art ; its occasion was that of 
religious worship. The problem underlying all tragedy was 
that of the conflict between duty and interest : so that its 
very nature indicates that the problem fundamental to the 
education of the new period had become a conscious one in 
their ethical thought before it became a practical one in the 
field of educational endeavor. Opposed to the older concep- 
tion of the duty of the individual to subordinate his interests 
to those of the state, the characteristic of the new Greek 
education was this greater emphasis upon personal interests. 
The dominance of comedy in the latter half of the century is 
of yet greater significance, for in its satire on the pretensions, 
the shams, the follies, the extravagances, and the corruption 
common to every pliase of life, it indicates that in real life 
self-interest had won tile, victory over duty. Since the new 
education was but a corresponding emphasis on individualism, 
this change in Hterature paralleled the one in education. 
/ The comedy deals wit-h problems or incidents in the daily life 
of the people, — of domestic unhappiness, of the relation of the 
sexes, of political corruption, of educational formalism and 
pretense : its characters are those of real life : its treatment 
is of the freest, lending itself to great exaggeration : whether 
it upholds the old and ridicules the new or the reverse, its 
function is to instruct and amuse. Thus it loses much of its 
religious character. Other forms of art indicate the same 
change. The severity and grandeur of the early art of the 
Greeks gives place in the transitional period to a studied 
grace ; and when the ideas of the new period are fully tri- 
umphant, a perfection in the beauty of form in turn degen- 
erates into a mere study of effect and of adornment. 

Moral and Religious. — This change in the drama and in 
art indicates a corresponding one in morals and religion. 
The moral customs of the Greeks had found a partial basis 



Greek Education 107 

in the authority of the gods of the old mythology, spiritual 
ized as they had been in the course of time. This religion, 
while not so fundamental to their social structure as the 
religions of Oriental societies or even as their own earlier 
genetic religion, yet furnished certain support for their state, 
for the sanctity of the family, and for the obligation to live a 
life not of ease, self-indulgence, or even self-aggrandizement, 
but of devotion to the common good. With the rejection of 
their old mythology and the mere formal retention of the wor- 
ship of the household gods, the very basis for the morality of 
the old genetic type was gone, and there was no corresponding 
development of rationality sufficient for the multitude to re- 
place the basis of a moral life. In the later tragedy, in the 
comedy, and in the didactic poets the fortunes of men are no 
longer determined, as in the early drama and the still earlier 
epics, by the interposition of the gods or the will of heaven. 
Natural causes and human calculation now replace the re- 
ligious basis of morality. The Greeks, as a people, never 
found any connection between the life to come and conduct in 
this life; now, with the removal of all present interposition 
of the gods in the life of man, there developed that complete 
divorce of morality from religion that gave the new teachers of 
any religion or any moral creed an opportunity that was not 
neglected. Extreme skepticism and unreasoned conservatism 
come into conflict, with no question as to where the ultimate 
victory would lie. Skepticism in belief leads to freedom, even 
license, in conduct. The new teachers, becoming specifically 
teachers of morals, reject altogether the old basis of morality, 
and along with that many of the traditional standards. As 
a consequence, the orderliness, the dignity, the gravity, the 
devotion to the public need of the old Greek life is replaced 
by a greater frivolity of disposition, a disposition to place per- 
sonal gratification above public service, and a general tendency, 
evidenced even in the views of the poets, to reject the old 
moral jdea,§ and even to hold that the immoral cause of 



io8 History of Education 

action has often much to be said in its favor when judged 
from the purely rational point of view. 

Philosophical. — One other phase of the change in the 
thought life of the times is to be noted, since it forms 
an integral part of the general educational change. Since 
the mythological tales of the earlier poets, even when inter- 
preted through rationalistic principles as purely allegorical, 
no longer offered a sufficient logical basis for the belief of 
the times, the higher thought of the Greeks — their phi- 
losophy — had been directed toward finding some explana- 
tion of the material universe, its origin, its constituent 
elements, its forces, and its relation to man. In time these 
explanations offered by Anaximander, Heracleitus, Zeno, the 
Atomists, etc., were cast aside as unworthy of acceptance 
by the new school of thought. The new teachers, the 
sophists, followed to a considerable extent by the philoso- 
phers, Socrates and Plato, looked upon the whole procedure 
of the ancient philosophers with skeptical eyes. Some of 
these found the desired explanation in a noumenal existence, — 
in a series of forms back of the phenomenal worlds. To the 
sophists, who questioned all things, such knowledge of the 
material universe was impossible and the search for it un- 
profitable. It is in connection with such discussions, that 
Gorgias posited that nothing exists ; or even if it did exist, 
it could not be known ; or if existent and knowable, it could 
not be communicated to others. 

It is evident that the old philosophy, dealing with such 
subjects as it did, was unable to furnish any basis for con- 
duct or give any practical preparation for the needs of life. 
With the rejection of the religious basis of morality the 
demand now made upon philosophy was to furnish a guide 
to conduct, — a basis for the practical life. The new thought 
in its search for truth turned its attention inward, and in the 
thought life attempted to determine the nature of reality. 
The sophists held that " man was the measure of all things ; " 



Greek Education 109 

that is, that the test of truth, of reahty, and the very nature 
of knowledge was altogether subjective and hence that these 
fundamentals were after all but relative. The later phi- 
losophers were not content with this superficial judgment 
but took up the inquiry and pushed it further. The new 
tendency in thought — the direction of attention toward the 
universe of ideas and emotions, instead of the mere specu- 
lative attempt to interpret a priori the nature of the material 
universe — is the feature of the times to be noted here. 
From this tendency came the formulation of the problems 
that yet remain the fundamentals of philosophy ; from it 
also came the formulation of the sciences of ethics, of logic, 
and of the earliest conscious attempts to work out the solu- 
tion of the fundamental educational problem. The develop- 
ment of free personaHty under moral law, giving widest scope 
to individuahty along with the fullest acknowledgment of 
obligation to one's fellows through institutional life, consti- 
tutes this problem in education as also in ethics. Before 
discussing the statement of this problem as made by the 
Greeks, a further account of the transition to the new 
education is desirable. 

The Demands upon Education made by these social changes, 
political, economic, ethical, literary, and the like, were two- 
fold. There was first a demand for greater freedom for the 
individual in action and thought to correspond with this 
growth of freedom in the political sphere. Second, there 
was a demand for a training or an education that would 
enable the individual to take advantage of the unprece- 
dented opportunities for personal aggrandizement and 
achievement. There was now demanded ability to discuss 
all sorts of social, political, economic, and scientific or meta- 
physical questions ; to argue in public in the market place 
or in the law courts ; to declaim in a formal manner upon 
almost any topic ; to amuse or even instruct the populace 
upon topics of interest or questions of the day ; to take 



no History of Education 

part in the many diplomatic embassies and political mis- 
sions of the times, — the ability, in fact, to shine in a demo- 
cratic society much like our own and to control the votes 
and command the approval of an intelligent populace where 
the function of printing press, telegraph, railroad, and all 
modern means of communication were performed through 
public speech and private discourse, and where the legal, 
ecclesiastical, and other professional classes of teachers did 
not exist. The Athenian state made no provision whatever 
for higher intellectual training of a formal kind, but it did 
offer opportunity for this in the freedom it gave the individ- 
ual during the period of his training in the gymnasium, and 
after the military training of the ephebic period. No means, 
however, existed in Athenian society as organized under 
the old regime for giving to the individual such training as 
would provide for personal achievement in place of civic 
service. Such instrumentalities now appeared in the form of 
a new class of teachers, the sophists. 

The Sophists have long been considered as teachers of im- 
morality who were responsible for the disintegrating tenden- 
cies in Greek thought and the demoralizing tendencies in 
Greek life in the period we are now considering. Even yet 
a sophist is defined as "an impostrous pretender to knowl- 
edge ; a man who employs what he knows to be a fallacy for 
the purpose of deceit and of getting money." Primarily by the 
work of the historian Grote, reenforced by the studies of later 
historians and philosophers such as Zeller, it has been shown 
that this view was largely due to the prejudices shown by. 
Socrates and Plato against a class of teachers among whom 
they themselves were numbered, but from which they were 
distinguishable, not so much by their contemporaries as by 
later students, who detect the difference in their completed 
work from the ideas of the sophists, in certain fundamental 
characteristics to be noted hereafter. 

Educationally the sophists were Greek teachers, net usu- 



I Greek Education 1 1 1 

ally native Athenians, who saw the defects in the existing 
organization of education at Athens and offered to the youth 
of the city the training so much in demand as a preparation 
for a career of personal aggrandizement in the political and 
social life of the times. The sophists were students of affairs 
who through wide travel and contact with Grecian and Orien- 
tal life in many centers had picked up the current learning 
concerning natural forces and phenomena, poHtical life, social 
institutions, and popular questions of the day, especially those 
concerning principles of conduct and morality. Possessing a 
rhetorical power in formal debate and private discussion that 
was a result of a training and experience, neither of which 
were to be obtained at Athens, these men quickly secured 
attention, built up a great reputation and through their will- 
ingness and ability to impart this knowledge and the rhetorical 
training in its use, they soon came to exercise a tremendous 
influence in Athenian life. To be sure many of them gave 
merely a formal training that often consisted in furnish- 
ing their pupils with set speeches upon given topics to be 
repeated upon definite occasions, such as trials before the 
courts, or with smart sayings and fragmentary information to 
be used whenever chance opportunity offered. Many, on the 
.6ther hand, gave a more consistent and thorough course in 
the study of questions of the day and in the rudimentary 
natural and historical sciences of the times, and a training in 
dialectic power through discussion and in rhetorical power 
thr-ough public speech. For the most part, however, they 
themselves taught through formal discourse or lecture ; this 
rriore thorough training was a later development. Two 
characteristics rendered them especially disliked by the 
tTiinking Greeks, especially those of a conservative character ; 
the one was the profession of their ability, as indicated by 
their title, wise men, to give information on any subject ; the 
other was their demand for remuneration for their services. 
With the charlatans among their number, — and they were 



1 1 2 History of Education 

probably not a few, — this took the form of offering to impart 
to any one any subject or any abiUty, if the remuneration was 
sufficient. Since power in argumentation constituted the great 
desideratum, it was the boast of many of tliem that they could 
give one the ability to argue either side of any question with 
equal facility. These two characteristics ran counter to some 
of the fundamental and most worthy traits of old Greek life : 
the former violated their principle of harmony and reverence 
and bordered on the insolent ; the latter their idea that devel- 
opment of character, whic' -vas the inclusive aim of educa- 
tion, could result only whci c the relation between teacher and 
pupil was based upon mutual esteem and regard and where 
the financial nexus was altogether wanting. Consequently 
there arose toward the sophists a most violent antipathy ex- 
pressed by all the writers with conservative inclination, and a 
natural desire upon the part of Plato and the members of the 
philosophical group to differentiate themselves from the 
despised class, however much they might have in common 
with it. 

Though the sophists gave information concerning phe- 
nomena of nature, science, and society, and in fact almost all 
topics that would receive treatment in the modern newspaper 
and magazine, yet their chief concern, because it was the 
chief interest of the populace, was in questions of personal 
and political conduct, — questions of a moral nature. So 
radically did their views differ from the old Greek beliefs, 
that they were accused then and often since have been 
accused of teaching immorality. Undoubtedly some of 
them, since they were wholly irresponsible, were guilty of 
holding and expressing views subversive of all the old Greek 
ideals and of the principles of morals commonly recog- 
nized at all times. But such was not their whole purpose or 
their general characteristic. What they did do was to dis- 
cuss moral questions and to settle them from a point of view 
not religious and social, but so rationalistic that to the old 



Greek Education 113 

Greek it amounted to immorality. On the other hand, their 
moral teachings placed an unprecedented emphasis upon 
individuality. As a class they did not teach immorality, for 
they held no common system of views ; the only idea common 
to all was that there were no such universal ideas, or standards 
of conduct, but that, in the words of Protagoras, one of the 
greatest of them, " Man is the measure of all things." As 
this meant the individual man, the tendency long developing 
in Greek society toward giving individuality more and more 
emphasis in moral lite and in 4'1"'?^ educational process, here 
finds its culmination, for this is pw-x-e individualism. 

The sophists taught, then, that the individual was to deter- 
mine his own ends in life ; his own standards of conduct in 
accomplishing these ends ; the extent of his services to the 
state ; of his observance of the old customs and moral tradi- 
tions, of his sacrifice of time, and wealth, and energy for the 
common good. Naturally many found no basis for continuing 
the old customs, and a period of great laxity and even disso- 
luteness followed. Many lacked the rational power to find a 
sufficient basis for moral conduct or sufficient moral stamina 
to observe if they believed in such. The immorality of the 
sophists, then, was a negative one, to be found in their exalta- 
tion of the individual. The individual now found a place 
distinct from and above his life as a citizen. From the point 
of view of the teachings of the times, this hfe, devoted to his 
own development and the expansion of his own personality, 
was of greater moral worth, than was one of observance of 
the customs wherein was dominant the morality of the city 
state and the old Greek life. From the point of view of the 
old Greek, the sophist tendency was an immoral one ; from the 
point of view of modern thought it is seen to be a necessary 
negative or critical stage, destruction of the old, but clearing 
the ground and even laying the foundation for the new. At 
the worst it was in education but a practical and utilitarian 
tendency toward giving the individual full freedom in the life 



114 History of Education 

of the times, and thus affording scope for the development 
of personaHty. Later thought was to furnish for this wider 
personality a more stable basis than could be obtained in the 
natural reaction following the rejection of the old which so 
limited and restricted the individual in the use of his own 
powers and the exercise of his own judgment. At best, the 
work of the sophist which, as defined by Socrates, was to 
teach young men "to think, speak, and act" was no unworthy 
motive and no insignificant service to perform for the state. 
Only in two respects, to which the modern world can hardly 
object, since both are accepted in modern education, can the 
sophists as a class be held to be teachers of immorality. They 
did believe that morality and wisdom could be taught theoreti- 
cally, whereas in the old Greek education these had been the 
products of a practical training in certain activities ; and they 
did hold that the basis of morality was subjective; — was to 
be found within one's own intellectual and moral being ; was 
to be based on reason and not, as in the old period, upon cus- 
tom and tradition, as revealed in their religious thought and 
institutional life. Nevertheless, these very views did much to 
encourage the tendency to unrestricted individualism and con- 
tributed much to the demoralization of Athens. The term 
sophist continued in use for many generations, and, even in 
the Christian centuries, continued to be applied to the teachers 
in the universities as practically synonymous with the modern 
term professor ; yet the sophist in the original sense, as a 
teacher attached to no institution and to no one locality, one 
who professed to give instruction on all subjects, was character- 
istic of only about a century. We have given the date of the 
Macedonian conquest (338 B.C.) as the close of this transitional 
period, since by this time the overthow of the independent 
political life of Greece made evident the fact that individual- 
ism had conquered, and that education would no longer be 
dominated by the state. However, a generation or more 
before this time the sophists had become differentiated into 



Greek Education 115 

two much more distinct classes of teachers typical of the 
cosmopoHtan period of the new Greek education. 

Resulting Changes in Education. — In Higher Education 
this change is most clearly seen and may be most briefly 
stated. That period in the old Greek education, from sixteen 
to eighteen, which had been devoted to physical training and 
indirectly to political training was now devoted more and more 
to purely intellectual training of a higher type. Much of this, 
as has already been explained, was of a purely formal char- 
acter and related to the development of rhetorical powers. 
In private rooms, on the street, or in the gymnasia, the 
sophist collected his body of adherents or students, imparted 
the knowledge, and gave the training desired. While this 
did not disarrange the old organization, it introduced a new 
phase which now received the greater attention. It has been 
noted that the ephebic training from eighteen to twenty 
was not universal, and it is probable that the new sophist 
training, since it offered a far more practical training than 
the old, drew largely from the ephebes. Certainly in the 
period following, that of young manhood, the sophists found 
a yet greater opportunity and drew to their private schools 
many who had entered the state of full citizenship. The 
very fact that these private schools could obtain such a 
hold is an evidence that individual interests were then 
followed to an extent altogether unknown in the preceding 
period. Within a century these new motives controlling 
education became so generally accepted that the earlier type 
of teacher, moved by desire of gain and the attainment of a 
reputation based upon intellectual ability and success, — 
motives wholly legitimate with the modern teacher but much 
in question then, — had developed from this irregular type of 
instructor into a definite teaching profession. 

In content the transition from the old Greek to the new 
Greek education is evidenced by many changes. In this 
higher education of an intellectual character, it has been 



ii6 History of' Education 

seen that literature, or literary training at least, formed the 
basis. But it is literature in a different sense, for it is 
literature now studied from the point of view of form rather 
than of content and intended for use from the point of view 
of pleasing and persuading the multitude rather than from 
that of instructing it in traditional moral ways. To the 
sophists is due the formulation of the grammatical and 
rhetorical study of language and literature. Much of their 
instruction related to the choice of words, the proper forma- 
tion of phrases — to grammatical structure and rhetorical 
effect. Most of the more important sophists wrote treatises 
on grammar. 

In the Palcestra and Music School. — The content of the 
lower schools also underwent a change. The tendency of 
sophistic teaching to develop in the pupils self-assertive- 
ness, a love of pleasure, glibness of speech, and even an 
unscrupulousness of conduct, finds its effects in turn in the 
education of children. The same emphasis upon formal 
literature, and hence an increasing tendency to introduce the 
later didactic poets, offering opportunity for hair-sphtting 
discussions ; the tendency to introduce new musical instru- 
ments, the cithera with a greater number of strings, the flute 
and other wind instruments, or at least more complicated 
ones ; the use of new types of music, such as the Lydian and 
Phrygian airs, aiming more at the subjective, pleasurable 
effect ; the use of the warm bath ; the relaxation of the 
severity of the physical training, — all these go to show a 
greater love of ease, an effort after pleasure, an attempt to 
please the individual and to allow him to gratify his own 
desires. The extent to which each of these changes would 
develop individuahsm to the detriment of the old rigidly 
moral training is evident. While it is not safe to accept 
unreservedly the interpretation of the Greek comic poets nor 
to rely solely upon them for the facts of the time, yet with 
careful allowances for the purpose and the occasion of the 



Greek Educatimi 117 

writing, no better description of the contrast between the old 
and the new education is to be found than in the controversy 
between the Just and Unjust Causes in The Clouds of 
Aristophanes. This argument, at least, typifies the position 
of the conservative Greek, as he sees the practices of his 
boyhood and the moral ideals of his manhood going to decay. 

In Method. — The changes in method have already been 
suggested. With an increased emphasis upon study of form, 
with the growing importance of intellectual acuteness in dis- 
crimination between words, with the enlarged rewards for 
mere showy effectiveness, the old emphasis of training in 
moral habit as the basal part of education is replaced by the 
exaltation of instruction — the giving of the theory — into 
the place of prominence. All education becomes more liter- 
ary and hence more theoretical. Instruction in grammar 
and rhetoric, soon to be followed by instruction in other 
subjects, reverses the old order of method and makes of their 
education a process of theoretical instruction. Evident, too, 
is the change in method of gymnastic training from one 
wherein the aim is to harden and drill men for practical services 
to the state, to one wherein the aim is a life of mere aesthetic 
enjoyment. Education becomes more distinctly a school 
process looking toward intellectual and practical, that is, 
individual, ends. 

The Results of the New Education, both in the century of 
transition and in the following period of complete dominance, 
were naturally of a twofold character. If one looks solely 
upon the darker side and is guided by the strictures of Plato, 
Aristophanes, and the conservatives, as are some historians, 
such as Curtius, it is a period of extravagance in customs, of 
license in action and of skepticism, irreverence, and anarchy in 
belief. If, on the other hand, one tempers the views of these 
critics by what is gained inferentially from their own writ- 
ings and more directly from writers less renowned, as is done 
by Grote (Chapter 6'j\ it is a period of the greatest enlight- 



ii8 History of Education 

enment in opinions, of moderation in policy, and of attainment 
in all the higher aspirations of life. In fact, as character- 
\ istic of a period of greatest freedom, both results may be true. 
(With its attendant benefits and its unavoidable evils the 
iabsolute freedom of learning and of teaching, the " Lern- und 
Lehrfreiheit," which is the ideal of modern higher educa- 
tion, was an actual realization in this period. Such evils are 
the necessary price to be paid for such blessings. With 
Athens, however, since such freedom attended not only 
learning and thought, but prevailed in the world of moral 
conduct, of political activities and of the religious life as well, 
the cost was a heavy one and was paid to the uttermost. On 
the one hand, it is true that the democracy was swayed by 
its passions ; that prejudice instead of justice controlled in the 
law courts ; that the sycophants swarmed and worked their 
unworthy trade to the demoralization of social life ; that vices 
loathsome to modern ideas prevailed ; that scoffing irrever- 
ence replaced the sedate faith of the earlier periods ; that 
youth exulted in a flippant independence and a supercilious 
agnosticism; that family morality decayed; that the pursuit 
of riches, with its attendant extravagance, now became char- 
acteristic ; and that in every phase of life, as a result of this 
freedom given to the individual, there was evident a license 
in conduct and an indifference to the old moral ideals such as 
to shock both the conservative holding tenaciously to the views 
of the older period and the student of the present who, be- 
cause one unconsciously feels the perspective of the present 
but can acquire only with great labor that of the past, is prone 
to judge the present by its best, but the past by its worst. 
The better to see the period in its real light, let us in con- 
clusion turn to a brighter picture as painted by Wilkins. 

" But above all things the Athenian of the time of Pericles 
was living in an atmosphere of unequalled genius and culture. 
He took his way past the temples where the friezes of Phidias 
seemed to breathe and struggle, under the shadow of the 



Greek Education 119 

colonnades reared by the craft of Ictinus or Callicrates and 
glowing with the hues of Polygnotus, to the agora where, like 
his Aryan forefathers by the shores of the Caspian, or his 
Teutonic cousins in the forests of Germany, he was to take 
his part as a free man in fixing the fortunes of his country. 
There he would listen, with the eagerness of one who knew 
that all he held most dear was trembling in the balance, to 
the pregnant eloquence of Pericles. Or, in later times, he 
would measure the sober prudence of Nicias against the 
boisterous turbulence of Cleon, or the daring brilliance of 
Alcibiades. Then, as the great Dionysia came round once 
more with the spring-time, and the sea was open again for 
traffic, and from every quarter of Hellas the strangers flocked 
for pleasure or business, he would take his place betimes in 
the theatre of Dionysus, and gaze from sunrise to sunset on 
the successive tragedies in which Sophocles, and Euripides, 
and Ion of Chios, were contending for the prize of poetry. 
Or, at the lesser festivals, he would listen to the wonderful 
comedies of Eupolis, Aristophanes, or the old Cratinus, with 
their rollicking fun and snatches of sweetest melody, their 
savage attacks on personal enemies and merry jeers at well- 
known cowards or wantons, and, underlying all, their weighty 
allusions and earnest political purpose. As he passed 
through the market-place, or looked in at one of the wrestling- 
schools, he may have chanced to come upon a group of men 
in eager conversation, or hanging with breathless interest on 
the words of one of their number; and he may have found 
himself listening to an harangue of Gorgias, or to a fragment 
of the unsparing dialectic of Socrates. What could books do 
more for a man who was receiving an education such as this.'* 
It was what the student gazed on, what he heard, what he 
caught by the magic of sympathy, not what he read, which 
was the education furnished by Athens. Not by her disci 
pline, like Sparta and Rome, but by the unfailing charm of 
her gracious influence, did Athens train her children." 

This period of transition was the decline and the extinction 
of Greek political activity ; but neither in this nor in the ear- 
lier portion of the following period — that of the culmination 
of the new Greek thought — was there an exhaustion of intel- 
lectual vigor. On the contrary, it was the period of the greatest 



1 20 History of Education 

intellectual activity, with probably a higher average of intelleC' 
tual attainment than has ever been reached by any people; 
certainly a period unsurpassed in its intellectual products. 
The mental vigor of the entire people was stimulated, their 
intellectual horizon broadened, and the content of their 
thought was much enriched. The first evidence we meet 
of this is in the work of 

THE GREEK EDUCATIONAL THEORISTS. — The Problem 

of the Educational Theorists was identical with the problems 
in ethics and in philosophy, the solution of which was attempted 
by the same philosophers. The old moral bonds being re- 
jected, the problem was to discover or construct new ones ; 
the old philosophy being invalidated, there arose the obliga- 
tion to originate a new one ; the old educational aim of 
developing that worth of the individual demanded by the 
institutional life no longer being recognized, there existed 
the necessity of formulating new conceptions of worth or 
of virtue, primarily providing for individuality but at the 
same time recognizing some moral bonds relating the in- 
dividual to his fellows. The occasion giving rise to the 
educational theorists was the conflict between the new 
Greek education and the old. Their task was to formulate 
a new conception of worth or virtue based primarily upon the 
conception of individuality instead of upon that of citizenship. 
In one respect the theorists agreed with the new Greek educa- 
tors, in that they held the ideals as well as the process of the 
old Greek education to be wholly inadequate : in one respect 
they agreed with the conservatives who rejected the new, in 
that they held the negative attitude of the sophists to be wholly 
inadequate and believed that some general moral bonds must 
be furnished. The attitude of the sophists toward knowledge 
was of the same negative and destructive character as that 
toward moral principles. Along with the ancient standards 
of conduct, the previous conception of knowledge had come 



Greek Education 



121 



to be looked upon as antiquated and false, so that the sophists 
despaired of the attainment of any satisfactory interpretation 
of reality, of the universe, or of life. Questioning the validity 
of all general truth, the ablest among them denied the very 
possibility of knowledge; while the rank and file of the new 
teachers sought merely to give interesting information, or 
offer plausible argument, or produce showy rhetorical effect, 
all for material gain or utilitarian purposes with no thought 
of fundamental validity or ultimate consequences. 

The task of these theorists on the moral side presents a 
remarkable parallel to that attempted by a modern epoch- 
making philosopher, who likewise united in the problem the 
ethical, philosophical, and educational elements. From the 
point of view of the modern positivism or evolutionary phi- 
losophy, the two ages present a striking analogy. Substituting 
the idea of conception or purpose of education for that of the 
scheme or system of ethical beliefs, the following passage from 
the Introduction to Ethics by Herbert Spencer is an exact state- 
ment of the problem presented for solution to the Greek edu- 
cational theorists : — 

" I am the more anxious to indicate in outline, if I cannot 
complete, this tinal work, because the establishment of rules 
of right conduct on a scientific basis is a pressing need. Now 
that moral injunctions are losing the authority given by their 
supposed sacred origin, the secularization of morals is becom- 
ing imperative. Few things can happen more disastrous than 
the decay and death of a regulative system no longer fit, before 
another and fitter regulative system has grown up to replace 
it. Most of those who reject the current creed, appear to 
assume that the controlling agency furnished by it may 
safely be thrown aside, and the vacancy left unfilled by any 
other controlling agency. Meanwhile, those who defend the 
current creed allege that in the absence of the guidance it 
yields, no guidance can exist : divine commandments they 
think the only possible guides. Thus between these extreme 
opponents there is a certain community. The one holds that 
the gap left by disappearance of the code of supernatural 



122 History of Education 

ethics, need not be filled by a code of natural ethics ; and the 
other holds that it cannot be so filled. Both contemplate a 
vacuum, which the one wishes and the other fears." 

Thus in ages quite remote in time the problems of individ- 
ualism present the same questions in education as well as 
in ethics and in morals. To the Greek philosophers, as to the 
modern one cited, progress in thought had destroyed the va- 
lidity of the old institutional morality. Its place had to be 
filled by a morality based upon knowledge. Formulated 
from the thought content of a given age, such a morality 
would be adequate to the needs of the time. Thus the 
divorce of the philosophy and the thought life from the prac- 
tical life was one cause of the insufficiency and the failure of 
the old. To make this union and thus furnish a new basis 
for the intellectual and the moral life, now united as never 
before, was the task first essayed by Socrates. 

Thus these philosophers, or educational theorists, attempted 
the problem growing out of the changes previously mentioned 
as characteristic of the period and affecting every phase of 
life. Their work is characterized by Zeller as follows : — 

" Scientific ethics became necessary because of the giving 
way of moral convictions ; a wider inquiry, because of the 
narrowness of the philosophy of nature ; a critical method, 
because of the contradiction of dogmatic systems ; a philoso- 
phy of conceptions, because of the uncertainty of the obser- 
vations of the senses; Idealism, because of the unsatisfactory 
nature of a materialistic view of the world." 

Socrates, His Relation to the Sophists and the Old Greek 
Educators. — While Socrates did but state the problem and 
vaguely suggest the principle of solution, he initiated the ten- 
dency that gave to humanity the highest formulation of the 
principle of the moral life that, until then, it had been able to 
reach. At the time of Socrates t^ere were other tendencies in 
Athenian society besides the individualism of the sophists; 



Greek Education 123 

but instead of looking toward the future all was reactionary. 
Aristophanes headed the conservative party that would return 
to the good old times. Xenophon in his Cyropcedia described 
the education of the Persians in such a way that he held up in 
a thinly veiled form, as an ideal to which to return as an 
escape from the existing anarchy, the Spartan system of 
education, modified by the introduction of. some aspects of the 
old Greek aim as formulated by Athens. (._ The Pythagoreans 
suggested a scheme of socialism, both formulated philosophi- 
cally and worked out practically, which was radically antago- 
nistic to the individuaHstic tendencies in Athenian life and 
hence extremely distasteful. But Socrates accepted as his 
starting point the basal principle of the sophist teaching, 
" Man is the measure of all things." This he did in no super- 
ficial sense. If man is the measure of all things, the first 
obligation which man must assume is to know himself. To 
Protagoras, who formulated this fundamental tenet of the 
sophists, knowledge consisted in sensations, — a philosophical 
belief not foreign to modern times wherein it is represented 
in an elaborated form by a large and influential school of 
thought, one might almost say the dominant thought of the 
past two centuries; on the contrary, to Socrates, knowledge 
consisted in conceptions, in ideas universally true for all 
individuals instead of in sensations possessing no canons of 
validity outside of the individual. In accepting the command 
of the oracle, " Know thyself " as the guiding principle of his 
life's work, Socrates afforded to the Athenian public a new 
type by reason of his tendency to introspection and his power 
of inward concentration. So opposite is this to the dominant 
Grecian interest concerning outward manifestation of power 
and excellence, in the beautiful in form and in pleasure to be 
gained from a life of activity, that it accounts for much of the 
hostihty of the Athenian public toward Socrates. 

Within the consciousness.'-c>f the individual, within the moral 
nature of man, according to this new teacher, is to be found 



124 History of Education 

the new moral standard, the determination of the aims of life 
and of the purpose of education. Not, however, in this con- 
sciousness as mere opinion. A characteristic of this age was 
the dominance of opinion. Questions relating to natural 
phenomena, natural forces, political policy, economic proce- 
dure, moral principles, were all thrown into the arena of public 
discussion. As nowadays questions relating to the operation 
of economic laws, of jurisprudence, of finance, are often 
settled by popular vote; as now each individual by virtue of 
his citizenship assumes to be able to settle such questions in 
his own judgment; so it was then under the influence of the 
sophists with a much wider list of subjects. " Come now, 
whether do you think that Jupiter always rains fresh rain on 
each occasion, or that the sun draws from below the same 
water back again," proposes Strepsiades in The Clouds as a 
fertile and typical subject for the exchange of opinion. 
Against this sway of opinion Socrates set himself with all the 
force of his wonderful personality. He accepted as a divine 
calling the mission of testing this conceit of knowledge in men 
and of endeavoring to develop such opinion into true knowl- 
edge. It is not the individual in man but the universal that 
gives him his freedom and makes him worthy to have 
this great privilege of determining his standards of conduct 
and his aims in life. As opposed to the purely individualistic 
basis of opinion, knowledge possesses universal validity. 
From this basis Socrates arrives at his fundamental principle, 
" Knowledge is virtue : " — by guiding conduct by those ideas 
that possess universal validity, instead of by mere opinion, one 
lives the virtuous life. The aim of education, then, was not to 
give the offhand information that, combined with superficial 
brilliancy of speech, constituted the ideal with the sophists ; 
but to give knowledge to the individual by developing in him 
the power of thought. Possessing such power, one would be 
no longer satisfied with a mere pissing opinion arrived at with 
superficial rapidity, but would argue back from, such initial 



Greek Edtuation 125 

opinion to the discovery of the ultimate basis in that which is 
true for all, and thus arrive at knowledge. Every individual 
has within himself the power or the possibilities of acquiring 
this power, — of knowing and appreciating such truths as 
those of fidelity, of honesty, of truthfulness, of honor, of 
friendship, of wisdom, of virtue. This is the phase of 
knowledge in which Socrates was interested, — the knowledge 
that is derived from one's own experience and that relates to 
and is the basis of right conduct. While such knowledge 
is the basis of "the art of living," that highest of all arts in 
which Socrates was so interested, the insufficiency of his 
teaching, at this point, was the chief reason for its failure 
to effect the practical reforms so needed in Athenian life at 
that time. Knowledge of right is necessary, but it does not 
in itself provide for right feeling that leads to the application 
of the knowledge in right doing. 

The Socratic Method. — The method of teaching adopted 
by Socrates was the conversational one. As represented in 
Plato's Dialogues his teaching has two purposes. The first 
of these is to demonstrate that knowledge lies at the basis of 
all virtuous action. Throughout such dialogues of Socrates 
as are preserved for us by his disciple, Plato, it is his custom 
to draw his illustrations from the humblest and most common 
activities and operations of daily life. The cobbler, the 
fisherman, the mule driver, the cook, the housewife, the 
soldier, the slave, furnish him with his illustrations and with 
the most fundamental truths he teaches. 

In the case of all craftsmen and all practical work of this 
kind, knowledge is the basis of right action. The muleteer 
is permitted to drive and beat the mules, while the free boy 
is forbidden, not because the one is a slave and the other 
free, but because the one has the knowledge and the other 
lacks it. The charioteer may drive in the race and the free 
boy who owH-s the chariot and team must remain a spectator, 
not because the one is of age and the other immature, but 



126 History of Education 

because the one has the knowledge that the other lacks ; the 
free boy is even under the control of his pedagogue, his own 
slave, thus reversing what would seem to be the conditions 
of freedom, because the one has the knowledge of right 
conduct while the other has this yet to learn. Knowledge is 
the prerequisite of free action, the basis of ail right action in 
all the arts. This is true also in the highest art of all, the 
art of right living. Here as elsewhere Socrates holds that 
such knowledge is to be gained not from the mere opinion 
of the individual but only by a search for what is common 
to all, what is of universal validity. 

Natitre of Dialectic. — But without training the individual 
is unable to discover that which possesses universal validity 
in his own experience and in his own consciousness. Such 
truth is to be gained only through the process of dialectic. 
Consequently the aim of his work and the general aim of 
education was to develop in each individual the power 
of formulating these universals, of developing the power of 
thought. Socrates termed his work, viaientics, — the art of giv- 
ing birth to ideas. His custom was to begin a conversation by 
asking for information, thus getting the views of his com- 
panion, which he seemed to accept and espouse. Then 
through adroit questioning, these original opinions were 
developed in the words of the person to be instructed, until 
the folly and absurdities of the superficially formed opinions 
were fully shown and the supposed possessor of wisdom was 
brought face to face with consequences that were either 
contradictory to the original opinion or so absurd that the 
opponent lost all confidence, or becoming involved in the 
mazes of the argument confessed the error of his opinion or 
his inability to reach a satisfactory conclusion. By further 
questioning, the whole truth of which the original opinion 
was but a fragment was then developed. This is the method 
fully revealed in the Socratic dialogues of Plato. 

Philosophically, dialectic is the process of forming no- 



Greek Education 127 

tions from conceptions. Differing from that of the earlier, 
which dealt directly with objects, the philosophy of this later 
Greek period is interested in things only through the medium 
of the mind, — only through their conceptional existence or 
representation. Hence the method employed is that of dis- 
tinguishing between the qualities of things, between appear- 
ances and reality, between permanent form and changing 
appearance. Such a method is that of forming whole- 
thoughts, conceptions, — in other words the dialectic process. 
Educationally, dialectic, or this conversational method sys- 
tematized and rationalized, is the method by which knowl- 
edge, truth, or the universal is reached. Externally this 
method, as illustrated in the Dialogues seems little more 
than dialogue ; but it is a conversation shaped toward pecul- 
iar ends, so that it becomes a discourse inductively arranged 
to culminate in the formation of a general truth relating to 
conduct or life. Psychologically, it is the process of the 
formation of concepts from percepts. Logically it is the 
resolution of species into genus or the reverse. Scientifically 
it is the process of inducing general principles from a 
multiplicity of phenomena. With Plato it becomes a type of 
life, — one given to reflection. He defines dialectic as " a 
continuous discourse with one's self." Thus it is the reflec- 
tion on experience by which one distributes the particulars 
of experience, the acts and phenomena of everyday life, 
under general principles and thus guides one's life by 
moral law. With dialectic the power of finding the per- 
manent in passing experience, possessed with peculiar 
force by the Greeks, becomes a conscious one. That 
which in the earlier periods unconsciously made for their 
development now becomes the conscious purpose of their 
education. 

Influence on Method and Conie^it of Education. — The im- 
mediate influence of Socrates' teaching on education was 
twofold. In regard to content there was an unprecedented 



128 History of Education 

emphasis on knowledge. This coincided with the similar 
influence of the sophists, who gave to the Greeks the knowl- 
edge demanded by the new condition of the times. With 
Socrates, as with the sophists, this was knowledge in the 
practical sense, — that which related immediately to life, but 
with this radical difference : the sophists gave the informa- 
tion requisite for the practical success of the individual irre- 
spective of the moral claims which institutional life had upon 
him ; Socrates aimed to develop knowledge concerning con- 
duct, knowledge of practical value in life, but possessing uni- 
versal validity and consequently moral worth. Since the 
knowledge of Socrates contained this compulsory moral 
import, it was a much broader conception than the knowl- 
edge of the earher philosophers, than the information of 
the sophists, and even than the modern conception of knowl- 
edge. Nevertheless, to the multitude, this distinction was 
hardly evident, and for them the influence of the philoso- 
phers coincided, in this respect, with that of the sophists. 

To both Socrates and Plato little mental improvement 
came from the direct impartation of knowledge. Against 
the popular methods of the sophists, which aimed to dis- 
seminate information through the formal lecture, these phi- 
losophers opposed the dialectic or conversational method, the 
object of which was to generate the power of thinking. 
Their aim was to create minds capable of forming correct 
conclusions, of formulating the truth for themselves, rather 
than to give them the conclusions already elaborated. Hence 
the method of dialectic came to replace both the method of 
formal delivery of the sophists and the method of training in 
habits through doing characteristic of the old Greek education. 

As previously indicated, this method is adequate when it is 
appHed to the formulation of ethical truths : it enables one to 
determine what is the just act, what is right conduct, what 
is honorable, etc., since in all of these respects every indi- 
vidual has had concrete experience. The limitations of the 



Greek Education 129 

method appear when applied to subjects wherein the con- 
tent is not given by the experience of the individual. The 
dialectic method can give scientific form, classification, 
arrangement, interpretation, but it cannot of itself give con- 
tent. Concerning mathematics, science, history, language, 
literature, it is inadequate, since the content is racial, and 
does not lie within the scope of the experience of the indi- 
vidual. In the educational process the content subjects are 
to be acquired by methods other than the dialectic. The 
limitation that the mere summing up of any number of 
instances always leaves the possibility of error in the general 
conclusion, unless the test of the negative instance is applied, 
exists in the very nature of the inductive process. In such 
cases, when the attempt is made in these subjects mentioned 
to formulate conclusions based upon one's own experience 
alone, this limitation becomes a positive defect; the methods 
may be uncertain, indefinite, and inexact. As the opposite 
of the dogmatism of the formal methods of the sophists, 
which gave to the individual the immediate satisfaction but 
not the ultimate truth, dialectic was a protest. The indefinite 
ending of most of the Socratic dialogues is but another evi- 
dence of the inadequacy of this method alone, as is also Plato's 
comparison of the method to the climbing of a mountain, where 
one successively reaches the summits of numerous foothills 
and peaks only to find other heights beyond him. The truth 
is that Socrates and Plato were interested in the process as 
a process, and in the power developed by its use. By their 
immediate followers the method, or at least the mastery of it, 
became a dominant aim in education, with the result that they 
became a people given over to endless discussions relating to 
refinement in the definition of words and subtleties in the dis- 
tinction of thought, rather than to the truth and validity of 
the thought content. They became in reality a nation of 
talkers, not of doers of deeds. At the same time, the acute- 
ness, ag'Hty, suppleness, and versatility which we think of as 



1 30 History of Education 

peculiar to the Greek mind to a degree never equaled by any 
other people is also a result of this period. When this 
method was given permanent form in the science of logic 
first formulated by Aristotle, it became the basis of an en- 
tirely new conception of education, to be noted later, namely, 
education as a discipline. 

Plato (420-348 B.C.). — Importance as an Ed2tcatio7ial 
Theoi'ist. — Granting at the outset that the relation of Plato 
to the education of his times was purely theoretical, and that 
the concrete details of his scheme are impracticable for that 
or for any time, we are here interested in seeing : first, 
that with Plato we find the most elaborate and suggestive 
attempt to solve the educational problem presented to the 
Greek thinkers of the times, — the problem of the conflict 
between the welfare of the individual and that of society ; 
second, that the ideal of life and of education as formulated 
by Plato was a most noble one, one most suggestive for all 
ages, and one from which reformers as well as most humble 
laborers in the cause of human advancement then as now 
have drawn inspiration ; third, that in the detail of his 
scheme, however chimerical and even reactionary it may have 
been, we find pertinent criticism of the ideals and the practices 
of his times and of education of the old Greek period as well ; 
and fourth, that in his criticism of literature and gymnastics 
and in his general formulation of the course of training of 
the rulers in his Utopian scheme of society, he gave a sugges- 
tion concerning the content of education that has been of far- 
reaching historical influence and that possesses permanent 
value. 

Similarity of Plato's Views to those of Socrates. — Con- 
cerning the Aim of Education : Agreeing with Socrates that 
the great need of the times was the formulation of a new 
moral bond in life to replace the ancient wealth and worth of 
old Greek society rejected by the individualism of the new, 
Plato, hke Socrates, attempted to formulate a new basis for 



Greek Education 131 

the moral life which should give sufficient scope for the 
individual while at the same time providing an ample basis 
for institutional life. Plato agreed with his master that this 
new bond was to be found in ideas, in universal truth, in the 
intelligence through which men were united by nature. 
Virtue consists, then, in knowledge, in whole-thoughts as 
opposed to opinions. Socrates was content with this mere 
formulation of the purpose of education and of life and with 
the formation of the power of attaining to this knowledge 
on the part of the few whom he taught. But Plato, pro- 
foundly interested in the nature of these whole-thoughts, 
carried his investigation much further. 

This work of determining the nature of ^knowledge, his 
metaphysics, is a most important part of Plato's philosophy, 
but one that can be referred to here only to the extent that 
it touches his general scheme of education. Knowledge, 
or whole-thoughts, consists in ideas as opposed to objects ; in 
universals as opposed to concrete perception ; in the ideas 
represented to us by common or class nouns. The form, 
then, is the permanent thing which gives rise to all the 
multiple, material reproductions of it ; the idea is the imper- 
ishable essence which gives reality to the substantial form in 
which it exists. The idea is the only true reality. Such 
objects as a table, chair, or desk are not the highest form of 
reality ; in the Platonic sense they are not realities at all, but 
merely ephemeral reproductions, which emanate, as it were, 
from the original life-giving, or existence-giving reality or 
form. There always must exist a harmony between the 
phenomenal object and the idea from which it emanated. 
The more nearly perfect this harmony, the more nearly the 
object performs the function for which it was created by this 
approximation to the idea which determines its ideal function, 
the more nearly it approximates the idea of good. There is 
a good for every phenomenal existence. The function of the 
eye is to see, — to the extent that it possesses this power it is 



132 History of Education 

the good eye. So it is with the entire realm of realities ; 
these are arranged in a series of goods until the highest 
good, the Divine Principle, is approximated. It is from this 
highest good that the lesser goods have emanated, and by 
this that their proper function and their proper forms have 
been determined. The good of each phenomenal existence, 
including man, is to attain to its appropriate function, that 
is, to enter into harmony with its corresponding or originating 
idea. So much for a brief statement of the Platonic meta- 
physics and ethics. 

It is in this sense that knowledge is virtue : for knowledge 
is the recognition of the harmony between phenomenon and 
the form or the idea ; it is the recognition of the true func- 
tion of all particular types of existence and of the approxima- 
tion to it of its phenomenal reproductions ; it is, in other 
words, but the recognition of the good. To attain to this 
virtue, this knowledge of the good, is the aim of the individual 
life ; to develop this knowledge, this appreciation of the good, 
is the aim of education. • 

Concerning the Method of Education : As in the case of 
the aim, so also in regard to educational method, Plato accepts 
the Socratic solution, ,but elaborates it. Whole-thoughts 
are to be reached by the process of dialectic, for dialectic 
is at bottom but the activity of the mind in forming concep- 
tions through the discrimination of qualities and attributes. 
It is in this sense that Plato defines dialectic as a " continuous 
discourse with one's self." While Socrates found this power 
in all and conversed with Pericles or the street cobbler alike, 
Plato considered that this longing for the supreme good, this 
power of attaining knowledge was to be found only in a few ; 
for to him this vision of eternal truth was a function of a 
special or sixth sense, a "sense for ideas." Hence, whereas 
the influence of Socrates fell in with the democratic tendency 
of the times, the influence of Plato was more reactionary; and 
in his ideal schemes of education he returned to an aristo- 



Greek Education 133 

cratic form of government, of a socialistic nature, wherein 
individualism, except as it found expression in this highest 
class, was suppressed. 

On the other hand, it is to be noted that this suppression of 
the individual in this idealistic scheme is more apparent than 
real ; for his rigid classification of individuals or social units 
is largely a self-determined one, and any particular individual 
is fitted into the scheme by the determination of his particular 
powers. Such classification, not based upon birth or wealth, 
but upon the inherent ability of the individual to appreciate 
higher forms of truth and to perform social activities as this 
native ability is developed by an ideal system of education, 
in reality offers to the individual the opportunity for fullest 
possible development of personality, if it be granted that a 
philosophical class capable of directing society has been 
placed in control. 

Dialectic then becomes a type of higher education almost 
identical with what would now be termed the study of 
philosophy ; for, during a period of five years, those capable 
of profiting by this higher education were to devote them- 
selves wholly to the contemplation of the good, to the study 
of ideas. As a term, dialectic becomes synonymous with the 
higher intellectual life, and its followers are recognized as 
a distinct order of beings separated off from the masses of 
citizens. In this intellectual class distinction is found the 
basis of some of the most characteristic features of education 
for many centuries following. 

The Advance beyond Socrates made by Plato in his educa- 
tional thought is most apparent when he attempts to indicate 
how knowledge, in this truest sense, can be made the basis of 
moral life ; how it can be applied to the moral re-organization 
of society ; how whole-thoughts can be apphed to human 
life. His answer is simple and direct: this is to be accom- 
plished by having those who alone possess this knowledge, 
the philosophers, become the rulers in society. The philoso- 



134 History of Edttcation 

pher is he who knows the highest good. He alone can deter- 
mine to what extent the phenomenal existence approximates 
the idea and thus attains to the good ; he alone, then, can 
determine that disposition of men and things which shall 
result in the moral advancement and ultimate perfection of 
the race. Society must be so re-organized that this lover of 
wisdom shall control and direct its activities and relationship ; 
education should aim to develop this power in every indi- 
vidual within whom the capacity exists, and through the 
guidance of the philosophers should prepare and direct each 
individual for the performance of those duties which by 
nature he is most fitted to perform. The Republic, or The 
Dialogue on Justice, gives the concrete answer to these 
demands. 

The Educational Scheme of The Republic. — In answer to 
the question how absolute justice as the basis of social life 
can be obtained, how philosophers can be given the control 
of society, how knowledge can be made the basis of a new 
social structure, Plato elaborates an order of society, with 
a system of education to support it, that is based upon a 
psychological analysis of the individual. He finds in the in- 
dividual these faculties: the intellect, whose virtue is prudence; 
the passions, whose virtue is fortitude ; the desires or appe- 
tites, whose virtue is temperance. Therefore, when in the 
hfe of the individual the intellect restrains the passions, rules 
absolutely the desires, and thus controls action ; when the 
passions serve as an ally of the intellect, as a dog assists and 
obeys a shepherd; when the desires render absolute obedience, 
— then the virtues appropriate to each are attained and 
justice is maintained in the life of the individual. Thus it 
would be also in society if the classes corresponding to these 
faculties should perform their appropriate functions. " Society 
is the individual writ large." Upon this figure of speech, 
which has led many a subsequent thinker astray, Plato bases 
his theory. Corresponding to the faculties of the individual 



Greek Edtication 135 

there are in society according to him three classes : the 
philosophical class, devoted to the pursuit of knowledge, 
whose virtue is wisdom ; the soldier class, devoted to warfare, 
whose virtue is honor; the industrial class, devoted to trade 
and crafts, whose virtue is money-making. If the philosophi- 
cal class should rule ; if the soldier class protect and defend 
according to the direction of the first; if the artisan class 
should obey and support the other two, — then social justice 
would be attained. 

Membership in these classes is to be determined, however, 
by no caste rule. Through a system of education which dis- 
covers and develops the quahfications of the individual for 
membership in any particular class, virtue in the individual 
and justice in society is to be obtained. To education is 
thus consciously ascribed a much broader function than 
ever before ; for it now is to provide for the fullest devel- 
opment of personality in the individual and for the main- 
tenance of a perfect form of society. Through education the 
conflict between the old and new Greek life is to be solved. 

Education of Children and Youth. — In his outline of educa- 
tion for children and youth Plato held very closely to the 
existing scheme. The early Greeks, he held, had builded 
better than they knew. Plato's philosophical exposition was 
to make patent that which they had unconsciously elaborated. 
Early education was to begin at seven and extend until the 
sixteenth or seventeenth year in the study of gymnastics and 
music ; the one to produce harmony of the body, the other 
for the harmony of the soul. The years from seventeen to 
twenty were to be devoted to the military gymnastic training 
of the ephebes. In the earlier period other subjects, reading, 
writing, arithmetic, geometry, etc., were to be introduced ; 
not so much in the sense of regularly organized disciplines, 
as in that of mere occasional activities to be determined by 
the interests of the child. During this period he was not to 
be forced in his studies ; for though compulsory gymnastic 



136 History of Education 

training might be of value, compulsory intellectual train- 
ing could not be. This same training in the earlier period 
would readily determine who, from their very nature, could 
not profitably continue to devote their time to education. 
Such should be drafted off immediately by the ruling class 
into the ranks of the industrial class. Similarly the mili- 
tary training from seventeen to twenty would indicate those 
possessed of spirit and courage but who lacked the ability 
to profit by any higher intellectual training. Such were to 
be drafted into the military class, where they were to find 
their life work. 

One of the most striking features of this organization of 
early education is Plato's discussion of the use of literature 
and music. While he sanctions the proper use of nursery 
myths and of poetry in the didascalcum, he condemns the 
Homeric poems and most of the early poetry of the Greeks 
as having an immoral influence and teaching erroneous ideas 
concerning the gods. Music is to be used strictly in the old 
Greek sense for the training in reverence and a rigid system 
of morals, and to this end both music and literature are to be 
closely supervised and censored by state officials. Dramatic 
poetry as mere fiction, and hence false, is to be banished 
altogether. 

Higher education, for which all the previous training has 
been but preHminary, is now to be organized for those capable 
of undertaking the intellectual disciphne. This conception of 
the higher intellectual life, with its appropriate preparation, 
altogether beyond the ordinary and traditional demands of 
life, is the great contribution of Plato to the education of 
his times. From twenty to thirty those who show evidences 
of a higher intellectual capacity are to devote themselves to 
the study of the sciences, — arithmetic, geometry, music, and 
astronomy, — now in no fragmentary and unorganized form, 
as in the early stage of education, but definitely systematized 
in a most serious study of the realities of life. Music, arith- 



Greek Education 137 

metic, etc., are not music and arithmetic as we understand 
them so much as a study of the scientific form underlying 
these arts. It is in music as the science of the harmony 
of sound, in geometry as the science of the relation of forms, 
not as a practical art to be used in war and commerce, that 
Plato is interested. Hence, he states, " In astronomy, as in 
geometry, we should use problems, and let the heavens alone, 
if we desire to have a real knowledge of the science and to 
train the reasoning faculty by the aid of it." Such study 
will develop the intellect of those capable of ruling ; but 
since these sciences to a considerable extent deal with opin- 
ion, there remains yet the study of pure being, of ideas as 
separable from and distinct from their material embodi- 
ment. This study furnishes the true subject of investigation 
for the philosopher. Many who are competent to master the 
sciences, have not the intellectual power to proceed to the 
study of true being ; hence at thirty there is another selection 
to be made. 

Those not chosen for this advanced study are drafted into 
the minor offices in society, while those of superior mind 
devote five further years to the study of dialectic, as the 
study of ideas is called. Through such training and such 
contemplation of ideas they come into the possession of the 
highest knowledge, of truth itself. The possession of this 
truth constitutes virtue. At thirty-five these philosophers, 
or possessors of truth, are to return into social life as guar- 
dians of the interests of society and as directors of its for- 
tunes. For fifteen years these philosophers, trained at the 
expense of society, are to devote themselves to the promotion 
of the social welfare ; at fifty they are to be allowed to retire 
in order to devote themselves to that life of study and of con- 
templation which is the life of supreme good. 

The Educational Scheme of The Laws. — The Laws of Plato 
is the product of his extreme old age, as The Republic is of 
the prime of his manhood. The continued decline in patriot- 



138 History of Education 

ism and public morality at Athens, the failure of his attempt 
as a philosopher to assist in the government of Syracuse, and 
the natural conservatism of old age explain the reactionary 
character of The Laws. The Republic is a radical venture 
into socialism as a remedy for individualism ; as a remedy for 
the same evil The Laws propose a return to a conservatism, 
almost a despotism, modeled on old Greek lines. TJie Republic 
banished the poets, on account of their immoral influence •, 
The Laivs banish or at least ignore the philosophers. That 
phase of education in the earlier work devoted to dialectic 
is in The Laws entirely omitted. Education cuhninates in 
a mathematical or astrological study that is closely allied 
to religion. Plato praises the religion and the moral con- 
ditions in early society, quite after the manner of Aris- 
tophanes ; but finding it impossible to return to the gross 
polytheism of the period, he substitutes an astrological reli- 
gion, the priests of which together with an hereditary prince 
become the rulers in society. The outlines of education, with 
the omission of the highest stage, is quite similar to that of 
The Republic, though animated by a different spirit. The 
literary element, now small, is strictly guarded by the state, 
on the assumption that the decline in Athenian life has been 
due to a corruption in music and in literature. While the 
details of the scheme of education are even closer to facts 
than those in The Republic, they represent a combination 
of selected Spartan and Athenian elements rather than an 
imitation of either. The common meals, the education of 
both sexes, the public character of the schooling, the close 
supervision of private life, are Spartan ; the literary elements, 
the philosophy underlying the curriculum, the festive charac- 
ter of the training, the extensive training in the choruses, and 
other features of like sort are Athenian. While in perma- 
nent value of the ideas elaborated TJie Lazvs cannot compare 
with The Republic, its historic elements are of somewhat 
greater importance. 



Greek Education 139 

The Permanent Value of Plato's educational theories is to 
be found in the principles formulated. From his theory of 
ideas and his theory of the good, as the approximation of the 
phenomenal existence to the reality of the idea, Plato develops 
in The Republic the fundamental ethical principle that each 
individual should devote his hfe to doing that which by nature 
he is most fitted to do, — • that is, to accomplishing his own par- 
ticular good in hfe ; for thus he will attain to that which is the 
highest for himself and accomphsh the most for society. 
There follows from this the fundamental pedagogical prin- 
ciple that it is the function of education, as controlled by the 
philosophers, to determine what is the particular good, the 
worth, of each individual, — what each individual is most fitted 
by nature to do, — and then to prepare him for this service. 
While it must be admitted that this solution is but a formal 
one, yet any practical solution is determined largely by a pre- 
vious formal solution. The value of a formal solution which 
will give an ideal to work toward is clearly indicated by the 
chaotic condition of our educational practice of to-day, which 
possesses neither formal ideal nor unified practice. 

Tlie Repu,blic was Plato's answer to the problem of the new 
Greek education. A state is constructed wherein one may 
find the embodiment of his own reason ; through which one 
may work out the highest good as determined by his own 
nature ; and in which therefore one may secure the widest 
freedom for the expression of his own individuality. Since 
the fullest possible scope was given for development, such 
limitations as there are exist by reason of the limitatiojis 
natural to the personality of each. 

While the scheme is Utopian, the idea is not. An educa- 
tion such as this, that will give to each the highest attahiable 
and in this highest attainable will of necessity give him the 
widest liberty, provides for the development of free men, 
each in his particular sphere in life. With each bound down 
by no utility save the use of his own powers in the fullest ex- 



140 History of Education 

pression of his own personality, and consequently for the high- 
est service of his fellow-man, we find here the first conscious 
explanation of the Greek educational ideal and the first exposi- 
tion of the idea of a liberal education. However the content 
of such an education may vary from age to age, this is the 
ideal to which subsequent generations ever return, — the ideal 
of an education that will produce the free man. 

The absolutely free man is the philosopher, — the one 
alone who knows and can appreciate the truth, the one who 
can with profit devote his life to the contemplation of eter- 
nal truth, the one to whom the guidance of society should be 
given. The dialectic of Plato includes philosophical truth, 
moral truth, religious truth. With Plato Greek life " ad- 
vances from the love of what is sensibly beautiful to the love 
of what is morally beautiful." Plato discusses these truths 
and through his ideal scheme of education seeks to hand 
them on to others. However deficient his scheme may be 
in adaptability to existing conditions, he at least strikes the 
Greek harmony of the medium, for the ideals of life and 
education of The Republic avoid the selfish surrender to the 
demands of the practical life that characterized the sophist 
teaching, and the equally selfish withdrawal from its studies 
that characterized the later intellectual life of the philosophi- 
cal schools, even of that which bore Plato's own name. It 
is in this significance of the term knowledge that Plato held 
with Christ, that "ye shall know the truth, and the truth 
shall make you free." 

Plato is far beyond the ideas of his own and of subsequent 
times in one respect, that alone would make his ideal scheme 
noteworthy. This is in regard to the education of women. 
Speaking of the administration of the ideal state, which to 
him includes all general social activities, he enunciates this 
general principle underlying all his educational scheme : 
" Neither a woman as a woman, nor a man as a man has any 
special function, but the gifts of nature are equally diffused 



Greek Education 141 

in both sexes ; all the pursuits of man are the pursuits of 
woman also, and in all of them a woman is only a weaker 
man." So far as women have the same qualities of char- 
acter they are to be educated and to be adapted to services 
in society as men are. The education of women is to be 
settled on the same principles as that of men and to include 
the same subjects, however much it may differ in detail. 
The differences lie in the difference in character, not in the 
difference of sex : " a man and a woman, when they both 
have the soul of a physician, may be said to have the same 
nature," says Plato, and hence should have the same educa- 
tion. It has taken more than twenty centuries to approxi- 
mate in practice the principle established in The Republic. 

One other principle of education, fundamental to The 
Republic, must not be overlooked. The Republic presented 
no ideal scheme for mere pastime or amusement, but afforded 
concrete moral guidance for the youth of his times; hence in 
the ideal plan of education, theory and practice are ever 
united. Theory was but the guide to higher practice. 
Accepting the existing organization of elementary education, 
in the method of which we have seen that practice and 
theory were ever united, Plato provided for the same union 
in the two periods of higher education. In the study of the 
sciences — from twenty to thirty — the theoretical discipline 
was ever to receive test and confirmation in the performance 
of practical social duties. And if the period from thirty to 
thirty-five was to be wholly devoted to the study of phi- 
losophy, of ethics, and of religion — -that is of truth — • it was 
but a preparation for the long service of the state, which 
again was but a training or discipline of a practical char- 
acter. Again, though at fifty the philosopher was to be 
exempted from these routine duties and to devote himself 
anew to the study of the truth, even yet as counselor and 
judge he was to unite practical duties with theoretical in- 
terests and intellectual pursuits. In truth, with Plato, as is to 



142 History of Education 

be seen more clearly with Aristotle, the theoretical never had 
that connotation of remoteness from life possessed by the 
term in its modern use. 

Theoretical knowledge is that knowledge of the highest 
good, necessary as a guide to the practical good. As the 
hunter turns over the captured game to the cook, as the gen- 
eral hands over the captured city to the statesman, so the 
philosopher hands over theoretical knowledge to the crafts- 
man or the ordinary citizen as a guide to successful conduct 
in regard to any interest in life. The most abstract of all 
pursuits, the study of dialectic, is after all most closely united 
with the practical life ; for in one is determined those 
"goods" that are to be practiced in the other. Without 
such a constant interaction of "theory" and "practice," the 
one cannot be true nor the other good. Thus is made con- 
scious in Plato, and later in Aristotle, that which is latent in 
the old Greek practice, — that which has become one of the 
most vitahzing ideas in present educational work, — namely, 
the union of thought and action, of learning and doing, of the 
reflective and the constructive processes. " The best kind 
of knowledge — the knowledge of what makes life worth 
living — cannot be won except by a mind and character 
trained and matured in the school of life ; and again, no good 
work can be done in the arena of practice unless inspired by 
the highest spirit of study, — the vital enthusiasm for truth 
and reality." 

TJic Practical Defects in the Platonic scheme are readily seen 
and easily condemned, though such condemnation is aside 
from the real point of value. The extreme aristocratic senti- 
ment which inspires both, whether it is the aristocracy of 
intellect of The Repiibtic or the theocratic aristocracy of TJie 
Laws, puts both works out of sympathy with existing life, and 
makes them distasteful to modern thought. The pronounced 
socialistic character of both schemes, which gave to the state 
absolute control of the whole life of man, shows a lack of 



Greek Education 143 

appreciation of the achievements of that life of a free democ- 
racy that made possible the very works of Plato himself. 
The provinciahsm of those ideal states, as well as the narrow 
hfe prescribed for the citizens therein, is again contrary to the 
dawning conviction as well as growing tendency in Greek life 
that led to the formation of a cosmopolitan society, broad in 
its sympathies and great in its intellectual achievements. 
The realization of these tendencies soon rendered these views 
of Plato, narrow in these subjects, antiquated and devoid of 
influence. In his views on slavery, child exposure, the status 
of the industrial class, there is no advance beyond the degrad- 
ing views and practices of the Greeks. Though a higher 
position is assigned to women, especially in regard to educa- 
tion, the family, as at Sparta, is wholly subjected to the con- 
trol of the state for the rearing of children. While ostensi- 
bly a scheme for the development and protection of individ- 
ualism, in some respects and at some points there are strange 
limitations on the rights of the individual. In The Lazvs this 
reactionary tendency is so extreme that even the liberty of 
opinion is restricted, and those who do not conform to the 
doctrines of the law given are punishable with imprisonment. 
The great practical defect of all the educational theorists, 
more potent with Plato because evident in his theory, was 
that they did not actually introduce or lead their pupils into 
the practical life. This is true despite the fact previously 
noted, that the Platonic conception of " theory " was never 
separated from practice. Knowledge is virtue, taught 
Socrates, but he did not show how one who possessed 
knowledge would be led inrsistibly to do the right act. 
Plato taught that, after their perfection in philosophy, the 
philosophical class should govern society ; but he did not 
indicate Jiow, otherwise than through the possession of truth, 
philosophers could be led to devote themselves to a life of 
practical service. That in the school of his own followers 
they were not led to do so, but, on the contrary, developed into 



144 History of Education 

the most exclusive life, is evidence of the insufficiency of his 
teachings on this vital point. In his wonderful allegory of the 
cave {TJie Republic, Bk. VII, 5 14-518) those who have groped 
their way out of the darkness and have gradually come to see 
the world as it is, return into the cave to lead out their fellow- 
mortals or to make their life in the cave more endurable ; but 
there is no indication whatever concerning hoiv this is to be 
brought about. There remains both in theory and practice 
this unbridged gap between the philosopher's possession of 
knowledge and the practical life of a citizen. Even though, 
as has been seen, the Socratic and Platonic knowledge was, in 
its highest form, a knowledge of the good, yet it was knowl- 
edge intellectually, not emotionally, apprehended. There is 
no provision in his thought for the development of the motive, 
the good will, — aside from growth in the possession of 
knowledge. The defect is not that there is a failure in the 
ideal scheme to unite theory and practice, for, as has been 
seen, this was constantly done; but rather that the actual 
education of the Athenian youth was an intellectual rather 
than a moral process, and that in the ideal scheme for the 
education of a philosophical class the emotional or volitional, 
as opposed to the intellectual basis of the moral life, was not 
considered. 

The Practical Influence of these two educational dialogues, 
The Republic and The Laws, is indirect and remote. Save 
in the formation of philosophical schools, to be mentioned 
later, their immediate influence was very slight. In the study 
of ideas, as provided for in the higher training of the philoso- 
phers, there was formulated a wholly new intellectual inter- 
est in life, which, with the fusion of the Christian faith and 
the Greek philosophy, was to give to subsequent centuries 
their chief subject of intellectual interest, — the study of dia- 
lectic. In the distinction between the rhetorical and grammati- 
cal study of literature of the early education and the scientific 
studies of mathematics, astronomy, and music (or acoustics), 



Greek Education 145 

there lies the basis of differentiation between the trivium and 
quadrivium which together were to constitute the curricuhim 
of at least ten mediaeval centuries. In the character of the 
study of mathematics and the sciences for idealistic rather than 
for practical purposes and in the drawing of this very distinc- 
tion, is found the basis for the disciplinary conception of edu- 
cation as later worked out by the Schoolmen of the Middle 
Ages. The practical value of these subjects is discarded as of 
secondary importance. Only as they are serviceable in devel- 
oping this sense of the contemplation of the good, do they 
possess high educational value. Arithmetic is " a study 
which leads naturally to reflection, and is of the kind we have 
been seeking," says Plato in his search for the proper sub- 
jects of study, " but has never been rightfully used ; for it 
really is of use in drawing us toward being." Again he says, 
" Arithmetic has a very great and elevating effect, compel- 
ling the soul to reason about abstract number, and rebelling 
against the introduction of visible or tangible objects into the 
argument." Herein is to be found the distinction which in 
later generations is to be used as the basis of a conception 
of education very different from that formulated by Plato 
(Chapter IX). 

The scheme for the education of the philosopher during 
the five-year period when he was to withdraw entirely from 
practical life in the contemplation of the good, and of the 
period in life following actual service, which, as a life of 
uninterrupted contemplation and intellectual satisfaction, was 
held up as the highest life, was responsible for one other pro- 
found social result. Without question the general practical 
effect of The Republic was to emphasize the life of calm 
repose, of philosophical inquiry, of intellectual activity as the 
highest type of life. Contemptuous of the interests of the 
industrial life, indifferent to the practical claims of society, 
callous to the old religious influences, the philosopher of 
post-Platonic times withdrew from all to pursue a life of 



146 History of Education 

reflection, of intellectual activity, and aesthetic enjoyment, 
but withal a life as selfish and individualistic as that of the 
most indifferent citizen or scoffing sophist. Such was the 
ideal of the tendency which the work of Plato encouraged, 
though he was trying to point the way out of the maze. 
Even before the dawn of the Christian era there were many 
who had come to look upon such a life as possessing religious 
and moral merit. To this tendency was added an element of 
Oriental asceticism which considered that the sacrifice entailed 
in the withdrawal from social intercourse, the rigid control of 
the appetite, the absence of the ordinary comforts of life, and 
the endurance of physical pain possessed peculiar moral effi- 
cacy. In this way the Platonic philosophy entered with Ori- 
ental asceticism into the foundation of Christian monasticism. 

In yet one other respect Platonism reacted practically upon 
the life of subsequent generations. By making it apparent 
that there was a life of high aspiration and endeavor separable 
from and higher than citizenship, the way was prepared for 
the establishment of the Christian Church. Even in The 
Republic the philosophers were, so to speak, outside the ranks 
of citizenship and exercised their control from without by 
despotic authority. In reahty the philosophers of the Pla- 
tonic group had little or no interest in public affairs. With 
the organization of these and similar groups of philosophers 
into schools, an institution extra-state, even extra-social, was 
formed ; while membership in these came to be looked upon 
not only as permissible but in the highest degree worthy. 
When the Christian religion was introduced as but another 
one of these schools holding peculiar doctrines, following 
ideals of conduct sharply differentiated from ordinary social 
customs, and considering the type of life represented by it as 
greatly superior to the life of the ordinary citizen, it found 
the way well prepared both in theory and in actual practice 
by Plato and his followers. 

Aristotle (384-322 b.c), as the one of these educational 



Greek Educatio7i i^y 

theorists that had the greatest influence upon subsequent times, 
the one who in his breadth of interests and activities more 
nearly approximated modern times, and who by common con- 
sent bears the reputation of the best-educated man of any age, 
deserves the fullest consideration. And yet, since much that 
has been said of Plato is also true of Aristotle, this account 
may be abbreviated without loss of comprehensiveness by 
comparison of Aristotle with his master, Plato, and with 
Socrates. 

Advance beyond the Idea of Plato. — In one fundamental 
point the two great philosophers were in agreement ; each 
taught that the highest of all arts that man can aspire to 
possess, is that of Politics — the art of so directing society as 
to produce the greatest good for mankind. The success of 
the outcome of the art of the statesman depends upon having 
the proper material to deal with : consequently the first in- 
terest of the statesman is to provide a properly equipped and 
properly disposed group of citizens. 

The production of such a citizen body is the work of educa- 
tion, which thus becomes the immediate object of the states- 
man and a most important part of the science of politics. This 
position accounts for the very favorable opinion which both 
Plato and Aristotle held of the Spartan and Cretan education, 
for they felt that these two states alone recognized the full 
political importance of education and made of it a component 
part of statecraft. At the same time Aristotle is most insist- 
ent in indicating his opposition to both the ends and the 
means of Dorian education. With both philosophers the 
treatment of education forms but a portion of their works upon 
politics. One other point of agreement follows as a corollary 
from the previous principle. If education is the preparation 
of the citizen for the good life (and according to both men the 
best in life is not obtained until after the practical training in 
the actual service of the state) ; if, as both held, this highest 
good is to be reached only through this service, which develops 



148 History of Educatioii 

both the appreciation for and the abihty to use the still higher 
goods of life — if these things be true, it follows that educa- 
tion is a life process wherein each particular stage has its 
appropriate good and its immediate end, and also wherein the 
ultimate goal is a life of intellectual activity and enjoyment 
made possible, by the performance of the lesser duties in 
hfe. 

While Plato sketched such a life in his ideal scheme in a 
dialogue wherein the literary form is most important and the 
scientific formulation of principles is lacking, Aristotle, on 
the other hand, has left us the logical exposition of these 
scientific principles in the form of lectures delivered to his 
students, which, however, lack the literary charm of the dia- 
logues and which unfortunately do not include the formula- 
tion of his perfected educational system. 

Formulation of the Ideal. — The solution offered by Aris- 
totle of the conflict between individual interests and social 
welfare, his formulation of the highest good in life and con- 
sequently of the aim in education, is quite different from that 
of Plato. Plato found this solution in the gradual acquirement 
of ideas that possessed independent existence, — a possession 
which in the individual constituted virtue. To Aristotle, 
ideas had no independent reality, but existed only as forms, em- 
bodied in objects and giving them individuality and existence. 
This ultimate good, which Plato sought in the consciousness 
of the individual, Aristotle sought in the consciousness of the 
race. To him the formal goal for which every individual 
strove, the object of the state, the bond in life between the 
individual and his fellows, was happiness. So fundamental is 
this distinction that it demands some further elucidation. 

Aristotle made an advance beyond Plato through his clearer 
psychological analysis, in that he discriminated more clearly 
between the intellectual and the volitional activities of the 
mind. Virtue consisted not in knowledge — that is. wise in- 
sight — but in a state of the will. A state of the will is not 



Greek Education 149 

so much a condition as it is a process ; hence goodness, the 
highest end attainable by man, is not a condition but an 
activity. Since they indicate in the clearest manner both his 
agreement with and his divergence from the solution given 
by Plato, Aristotle's own words deserve space here: "Now 
our definition is in harmony with those (the Platonists) who 
say that happiness is goodness or some form of goodness ; 
for activity according to goodness implies goodness. Yet 
there is, I take it, no small difference between the conception 
of the highest good as a possession, and that of the highest 
good as in use; between the conception of it as a condition, 
and the conception of it as an activity." 

The idea of Plato existed only as form ; Aristotle, on the 
other hand, dealt ever with concrete embodiments of ideas, 
with the facts of nature, of history, or of the soul of man. 
Reality with Aristotle consisted in the accomplishment of its 
end, by any given object, entity, or fact; in the performance 
of its appropriate or highest function : hence reality is activ- 
ity, or performance of function, or a "becoming," whether it 
be a phenomenon of nature (physical), or of man (social). 
In regard to man these doctrines that possess the chief sig- 
nificance for us in their educational connection, are worked 
out fully in The Ethics. 

" The function oi man, then, is an activity of the soul of 
a rational, or at least not of an irrational, character." The 
good for man is defined as " an activity of the soul according 
to goodness ; and, if there are more kinds of goodness than 
one, in accordance with that which is best and most com- 
plete." Later goodness is defined as being of two kinds, 
" goodness of intellect and goodness of character." The 
first of these is produced and increased by teaching and is 
the product of experience and time ; goodness of character 
is the outcome of habit. As nature does not give to some or 
withhold from some goodness of character, it renders each of 
us capable of attaining or receiving this goodn~ess by forma- 



150 History of Education 

tion of habit. Goodness consists, then, in well being and 
zvell doing. Well being is the goodness of the intellect, con- 
nected closely with the possession of universal truth of the 
Platonic school and providing for the development and the 
welfare of the individual ; tvell doing is the goodness of 
action, acquired through habituation and represents the social 
aspect of the ideal. Virtue does not consist in mere knowl- 
edge of the good ; but in the functioning of this knowledge, 

— of ideas or principles. In this respect Aristotle, while a 
foreigner to Athens, represents more truly than Plato the 
common attitude of the Greeks, mentioned previously, in 
considering goodness as some form of efficiency or excel- 
lency, as some superiority in conduct rather than in a state 
of mind. 

Happiness is the result of such activity, of such function- 
ing of ideas, in actual life. Happiness is defined in The 
Ethics as " the conscious activity of the highest part of man 
according to the law of his own excellence, not unaccom- 
panied by adequate external conditions." Here again are 
found both individual and social elements. The highest part 
of man is reason : by this he is distinguished from all other 
animals. Consequently his goodness consists in the function- 
ing of reason, — in the accomplishment of his highest end, 

— the control of life by reason. This gives the " well-being " 
side. The greater part of The Ethics is devoted to a discus- 
sion of the other question ; namely, " What is the law of 
man's own excellence } " This, in brief, is found to be in his 
political or social nature; "Man is by nature a political 
animal." Consequently man's highest excellence, his good- 
ness, is again found to be the putting into operation, in his 
life with his fellows, of these ideas or principles of conduct 
of universal validity. Virtue and happiness consist in this 
life of action ; thus the well-doing side, or goodness of char- 
acter, is provided for. 

One further Aristotelian distinction must here be made, in 



Greek Education 151 

order that one may understand his conception of highest 
goodness and happiness. The distinction is that between 
the theoretical activities, — those that have their end in the 
activity itself, — and the practical activities, those that have 
their end in some product beyond the activity itself. The 
same distinction holds in regard to science : the science of 
surveying is a practical science having its object or " end " 
in the accomplishment of some external service ; the science 
of geometry is theoretical, since the end of such a study is 
found in the demonstration of the proposition, — in the 
activity itself. Now of all practical sciences, that of politics 
is highest, for it is the practical science of the good life. 
There is, however, a higher theoretical science, — that of the 
intellectual life, wherein the object is the good life, the life 
of reason. This life is good in itself. As war is for the 
purpose of peace, business for the purpose of leisure, so the 
political life is after all for the sake of the "speculative," 
that is, the intellectual life. This is the highest excellence 
of man and the highest type of life, and is to be reached 
through the practical life. So " the activity of God, which 
excels all others in blessedness, will be speculative, and accord- 
ingly that activity which is most akin to it will be the happi- 
est. And it is a proof of this that the lower animals have no 
capacity for speculation, cannot attain to happiness. ... It 
follows then that happiness is coextensive with speculation 
{i.e. with intellectual activity) and that those who have the 
greatest power of speculation will be happiest, not acciden- 
tally, but by virtue of their speculation ; for speculation (intel- 
lectual activity) is valuable in itself." 

It is evident from this use of the term speculation that it 
does not have the connotation of unreality associated with, 
our use of the term, for it is the highest reality ; nor, on the 
other hand, does it indicate exactly the life of contemplation, 
certainly not that of isolation into which the Platonic ideal 
developed. This life of intellectual activity has a well-doing 



152 History of Education 

as well as the zvell being side. The scientist, the poet, the 
theologian, the literary writer, the student of whatsoever field 
who has been prepared for his vocation by actual experience 
in life, leads the life of the Aristotelian speculation. In this 
principle again we arrive at the Greek idea of a liberal educa- 
tion — the training for a life which is an ultimate good and, 
withal, in itself the highest end, — the life of intellectual 
activity, which constitutes the highest virtue and produces 
the greatest happiness. 

In the formulation of this ideal Aristotle avoids the great 
difficulty that Plato experienced in uniting theory and prac- 
tice. Whereas Plato merely in his description of an ideal 
education indicates that the theoretical and the practical are 
never to be separated, but omits to give a philosophical 
basis for this union and fails to check the tendency, even 
among his own followers, to neglect their obligations to 
society, Aristotle unites the two in his conception of the two- 
fold nature of virtue and happiness. In the conclusion of 
The Ethics, here quoted, he clearly states that with the for- 
mulation of the theory, the task is only half accomplished. 

" Now if arguments and theories were able by themselves 
to make people good, they would, in the words of Theognis, 
be entitled to receive high and great rewards, and it is with 
theories that we should have to provide ourselves. But the 
truth apparently is that, though they are strong enough to 
encourage and stimulate young men of liberal minds, though 
they are able to inspire with goodness a character that is 
naturally noble and sincerely loves the beautiful, they are 
incapable of converting the mass of men to goodness and 
beauty of character." 

Since this is true, and since what nature has done for the 
character of the individual is beyond man's control, all that 
can be done is to train the individual through the formation 
of habit. Then, when good habits have been formed and a 
good nature has been discovered, this work in training can 



Greek Education 153 

be completed by the work of instruction in theory. All this 
is the work of education. Hence the treatment of the gen- 
eral problems in The Ethics leads to the discussion of the 
practical means in The Politics, which, like The Republic, is 
a treatise on education in its broadest sense. Pri 
examination of Aristotle's scheme of education, ont 
comparison with the previous development of Greek [nought 
demands attention. 

The Method of Educatio7i. — In brief, the method of Aris- 
totle is objective and scientific, as opposed to the philo- 
sophical or introspective method of Plato. Plato seeks truth 
through the direct vision of reason, and seeks the confirma- 
tion of reason only in the consciousness of man. Aristotle 
seeks truth primarily in the objective facts of nature, of 
social life, arid in the soul of man, and seeks confirmation 
primarily in the historic consciousness of the race. Conse- 
quently there is a constant reference to what " the many " 
or what "the wise" have thought, and an examination of the 
greatest diversity of views, of historic facts, and of tradition 
and custom. 

To Aristotle, the dialectic method of Plato, which sought 
truth in the supersensuous region of mind, produced truth 
of only formal value ; he, on the contrary, sought for truth 
in the experience of the race and developed as his method 
the inductive process. This he applied both objectively and' 
subjectively. The Socratic dialectic had made only the 
latter application. Only after he had found the general 
meaning of his terms and of his facts in the general con- 
sciousness of mankind, did Aristotle seek for confirmation by 
the introspective process. Though the inductive and deduc- 
tive processes of reason had been distinguished, and of course 
as modes of thought had been coextensive in their history 
with the history of the human race, with Aristotle they 
became conscious procedures ; for he it was that first formu- 
lated the logic of each. " There is one point," he says in 



154 History of Education 

his attempt to get at the meaning of the terms we have been 
explaining, in his adoption of the inductive method, " as to 
which we must be clear, the difference between reasoning 
down from first principles and reasoning up to first prin- 
ciples. Plato used to raise the question quite rightly, and to 
ask whether, in a given case, the way lay from first principles 
or to first principles, as in the race-course from the judges to 
the extremity of the course or in the opposite direction." 

Not only more widely than any man previous to his 
times, but also more widely than any man in subsequent 
ages, Aristotle used this inductive process. Consequently, 
since he applied it in the formulation of his philosophical 
system to all previous systems of Greek thought, he repre- 
sents the culmination of the Greek intellectual life ; and, on 
the other hand, since he applied it most extensively to wholly 
new fields of investigation, he became the father of practi- 
cally all of the modern sciences. 

TJie Scheme of Education in The Politics. — To return to 
the topic of the means for realizing this life of well being 
and well doing. In The Politics, where he is discussing the 
nature and the elements of permanency in constitutions, the 
relation of education to politics is thus stated : " Of all 
things which I have mentioned that which contributes most 
to the permanence of constitutions is the adaptation of 
education to the form of government." In The Ethics he 
approaches the subject- as follows: "We laid it down that 
the end of Politics is the highest good ; and there is nothing 
that this science takes so much pains with as producing a 
certain character in the citizens, that is, making them good 
and able to do fine actions." Now man possesses both body 
and soul ; and the soul is composed of both rational and irra- 
tional parts. Hence, the ideal education must consist, first, 
of education for the body — gymnastics ; second, education 
for the irrational part of the soul, that is, the desires, passions, 
and appetites, consisting of music and literature or the moral 



Greek Education 155 

education ; third, the education of the rational part of the 
soul, through the sciences and philosophy. The first two 
constitute the practical education and hence are not ends in 
themselves, but rather means to the highest end, — the life 
of reason. Herein lies the basis of his criticism of Spartan 
education. Previously he has praised the Spartan above all 
other forms of Grecian education in that the state makes the 
development of its citizens to a predetermined end a con- 
scious aim. But because Sparta limited education to this 
training of the body and in practical reason to the exclusion 
of that which forms an end in itself, namely, the life of intel- 
lectual activity, it is to be condemned. 

Since the exposition was either not completed or has 
not come down to us, the detailed treatment of these three 
aspects of education in The Politics is a fragmentary one. 
Concerning the early care of children and the later gymnas- 
tic training he has many practical suggestions to offer and 
many criticisms on the established custom, especially the 
Spartan, which after all he is inclined to favor. The edu- 
cation of the body must precede instruction. Care of the 
morals of children should be in the hands of the government 
and of the parents, and not in the hands of slaves. Gymnas- 
tic training should aim at developing good habits, and control 
of the passions and appetites ; it should not aim at mere 
superiority in athletics nor at the development of the rough- 
ness and ferocity of soldiers. The two phases of education 
should not go on together, " for the two kinds of labor are 
opposed to one another, the labor of the body impedes the 
mind, and the labor of the mind the body." 

In the second or moral phase of education the traditional 
subjects of music and literature are accepted as the appro- 
priate means. Aristotle takes a much broader view of litera- 
ture than does Plato, and approves of the use of the poets. 
In another work, he formulates the philosophy underlying its 
use into a new science, that of aesthetics, which ever since 



156 History of Education 

has built upon this work of Aristotle as a foundation. Music 
is approved for these reasons : it is, first, an amusement or 
form of relaxation; second, it is a form of intellectual enjoy- 
ment, in the same sense as that employed by Plato ; last and 
most important of all, it possesses a moral value. Here is 
advanced that idea of " purgation " which is further devel- 
oped in other connections, and gives the conscious explana- 
tion of the use of music by the Greeks as the chief means of 
moral education. " Rhythm and melody supply imitations 
of anger and gentleness, and also of courage and temper- 
ance, and of virtues and vices in general, which hardly fall 
short of actual affections, as we know from our own experi- 
ence, for in listening to such changes our souls undergo a 
change." This habit of feeling pleasure or pain at this 
musical representation of good or evil is not far removed 
from the same feelings about the realities of good and bad 
in conduct. In this manner music, beyond all other forms 
of expression which appeal to us through the senses, has 
the power of forming character in us by " purging " the 
mind of evil and strengthening the good in us ; for " there 
seems to be in us a sort of afhnity to harmonies and rhythms, 
which makes some philosophers say that the soul is harmony, 
others, that it possesses harmony." 

All citizens are to share in this education alike, though 
slaves and artisans cannot attain to citizenship and hence 
not to the good life, since " it is not possible to care for the 
things of virtue while living the life of the artisan or the 
slave." With regard to the education of women Aristotle 
did not agree with Plato, as (basing his argument upon 
a comparative study of the sexes in lower animals) he 
held that woman was essentially different from man in 
nature, and hence that the former cannot profit by this 
higher education to be given citizens. 

The details of this higher education, that of the rational 
part of the soul, — the one phase of education which was 



Greek Education 157 

an end in itself and constituted the good for all the rest, 
— are not given. The treatise ends here abruptly, and 
that subject upon which above all others Aristotle could 
have thrown light, is left with mention only. From his 
other discussions, however, we know that this higher edu- 
cation would contain a large element of mathematics, — 
especially of geometry, because of its training in deduc- 
tive reasoning, — and also of the mathematical science's, 
physics and astronomy. From Aristotle's own example we 
may presume that it would include the natural sciences 
and, above all, dialectic, including both the philosophical and 
the logical studies so thoroughly developed in his own school. 

Following this "speculative" education, or rather along 
with it, comes the practical education in citizenship. This 
includes two types of activities, the practical or executive, 
and the theoretical or legislative and judicial. The citizen 
develops from the former into the latter, and comes to 
devote more and more of life to purely intellectual pur- 
suits. Finally, those best acquainted with divine things 
enter the priesthood. Thus gradually the practical life 
passes into the "speculative," and the lesser goods are de- 
veloped into the highest good of all, — the life good in itself. 

Practical Influence of Aristotle. — It was no figure of 
speech that Dante used when he termed Aristotle " the 
master of those who know." The one reason why Aris- 
totle and Plato also deserve so extended a mention in an 
outline of the history of education which purports to be 
an account of facts and not of the theories of a few indi- 
viduals is not because of the extent or even the peculiar 
character of their writings, but because of the actual influ- 
ence these writings have had upon subsequent times. In 
later chapters, on the Middle Ages, on the Renaissance, on 
the origin of modern science, the subject of Aristotle's 
influence must again arise; hence a brief mention of the 
m.ain outlines of his influence will here suffice. 



158 History of Education 

Aristotle was the first great scientist — the greatest sys- 
tematizer, in fact, that the world has ever known. As 
Plato was the great philosopher and initiated the lines of 
inquiry which yet constitute the chief questions in every 
branch of metaphysics and of ethics, so Aristotle sought to 
give to all subjects of inquiry, even those of metaphysics 
and ethics, a scientific form. Not content, however, with 
giving scientific form to other lines of inquiry, he organ- 
ized as fundamental to all, the science of the form of 
thought. For fourteen hundred years after the opening of 
the Christian era, — indeed the period might be extended 
to include the century of the Reformation itself, — no book, 
save the Bible, had any such influence as the Organon of 
Aristotle. This work includes, first, the Prior Analytics, a 
treatise on the syllogism or on the elements of reasoning of 
all kinds; second, the Postciior Analytics, or the logic of 
the deductive sciences ; and, third, the Topics, or the art 
of discussing subjects where demonstration is impossible. 
To these divisions of the formal science which underlies all 
science, subsequent times have added little or nothing, so 
thorough was the work of the master. Concerning the art 
of inductive reasoning, which Aristotle himself practiced so 
successfully and for the first time consciously, he wrote 
little, and that little was lost to all the Middle Ages. So it 
happened that the first great master of inductive reasoning 
fastened upon the human race for a thousand years a type 
of intellectual life that was purely deductive in character, 
and hence non-progressive. Dialectic, or the conscious 
process of reasoning, either for the discovery of truth or for 
mere victory over an opponent, which first became conscious 
with the sophists, which was given a moral bent by Socrates 
and a universal application by Plato, was by Aristotle given 
universal form and universal influence. 

So fundamental was Aristotle's influence in these respects 
that the scientific thinker as well as the person in everyday 



Greek Education 159 

life is indebted to him for many of the most expressive terms 
in language. Such words as end, indicating the final purpose 
or cause, the term final cause to indicate end in this sense, 
the word form, the word matter and subject-matter as we use 
it in education (from the term indicating the timber which 
the carpenter uses), such words as principle, maxim, motive, 
facility, enei'gy, habit, category, mean, and extreme are all the 
results of his efforts to systematize knowledge. 

Even more important than words are the very subjects of 
study, or branches of knowledge which Aristotle first organ- 
ized. Through the partial formulation of the inductive 
method and the application of thought to new phases of 
reahty, almost wholly neglected before his times, he became 
the originator of many modern sciences. Among those upon 
which he wrote treatises are physiology, mechanics, natural 
philosophy, or physics in its broader principles, and the cor- 
responding biologic science, natural history. 

Universally recognized as the strongest of the ancients, 
down to the time of the fifteenth-century Renaissance Aris- 
totle's name was supreme. Through scholasticism (Ch. IV, 
Sec. 4) his work became the basis of all studies, and of all 
educational institutions during the Middle Ages. In fact it 
might be said that during those ages, all secular writings, 
save a few by this one man or such works as were based 
directly upon his, dropped out of human interests. 

His immediate influence in Greece was not so funda- 
mental. His school of adherents, the Peripatetics, did not 
rise to his standard, made little or no use of induction, and 
spent their time in writing commentaries or fruitless interpre- 
tations and adaptations, mostly upon isolated topics. The 
writings of the master were carried to Asia Minor (287) 
where for nearly two hundred years they were lost; when 
finally recovered they found their way to the Alexandrian 
library and later to Rome. Through translations into Ara- 
bic the knowledge of Aristotle was kept alive among the 



i6o History of Education 

Saracens at Bagdad, and later throughout their empire, and 
by them was carried into Spain. Thence as well as from 
the East the Saracen learning revived and purified the Euro- 
pean interest in and knowledge of the master during the 
early university period. 

THE COSMOPOLITAN PERIOD OF GREEK EDUCATION. 

General Characteristics. — During this period the tendencies 
of the transitional period become permanently fixed. The 
influence of all the philosophical teachers had in practice but 
strengthened the emphasis upon the life of retirement from 
public duties and social activities as the ideal of highest de- 
velopment. If the intellectual Hfe is held to be free from 
control of general standards of social obligation, or at least 
is held to be of greater worth, why should not the standard 
of the practical life be determined by the individual himself } 
Thus the tendency toward individualism is confirmed by the 
very forces that attempt to check the growing evil. Con- 
sequently there is no development of educational ideals or 
standards. Theoretically there is none possible beyond that 
of Plato and Aristotle ; practically no formulation of general 
standards or ideas could take place at all. Philosophy ceases 
to be the attempt to discover truth and becomes but an 
exposition of doctrine. Not " What is so .'"' but "What saith 
the master.''" is ever the test. It is not so much a body of 
ethical or metaphysical principles that holds the disciples 
together into a school, but rather the study of a common 
subject-matter. 

Two educational features characterize this period : the one, 
the conquest of the civilized world by Greek ideas and Greek 
culture ; the other, the formation of definite types of educa- 
tional institutions. 

Spread of Greek Culture. — As Aristotle through his 
philosophy summed up all the intellectual life of the past, 



Greek Education i6i 

and through his method laid the basis for all intellectual life 
of the future, so through his great pupil, Alexander the Great, 
he spread the culture of Greece throughout the known world. 
It was through the power of mind, though unconscious,' that 
Greece in an earlier day had driven off the hordes of Asia ; 
now through the power of mind, consciously developed and 
applied, she returned to make captive her would-be con- 
queror, as still later she enthralled by the same power her 
Roman master. Through genius of administration Alexan- 
der made his preliminary conquest : through the Greek cul- 
ture he aimed to make it permanent. Though his successors 
furthered his plans, one alone, Ptolemy, carried them out to 
the full. Within a century after Alexander the habits and 
customs of all of the East, — even of the ever reserved Jews, 
— were colored by those of the Greeks. Oriental peoples 
produced Greek philosophers ; Greek philosophers in turn 
accepted in essence the Hebrew religion, or later the Chris- 
tian faith. Greek schools, Greek theaters, Greek baths, 
Greek institutions of every type were to be found in every 
city in the East. At the time of the Mohammedan conquest, 
after almost a thousand years of vicissitudes, the city founded 
to bear the name of the conqueror possessed 400 theaters, 
4000 palaces, 4000 baths, and a library of 700,000 volumes. 

Through the work of the Greeks during this period, learn- 
ing became, as it remains now, universal ; it was the pos- 
session of no peculiar people, and became independent of 
time and place. As learning took upon itself this universal 
influence, it tended on the other hand to become individual- 
istic in character. The philosopher tended to withdraw from 
interest in society ; the individual, to find the highest ends 
in life in states of consciousness rather than in forms of 
social activity. Ethics, the philosophy of the moral life, 
gradually disassociated itself from the life of pohtical activity 
and related itself under the Oriental, especially Jewish, in- 
fluence with the religious life. As a consequence both the 



1 62 History of Education 

intellectual life and the religious life tended to disassociate 
themselves from the state and to connect themselves with 
one another. There results a cosmopolitan tendency in the 
intellectual life, a humanitarian tendency in customs and 
morals, and one toward the multiplication and toleration of 
sects distinguished by theological or metaphysical differences. 
Through the gradual acceptance of the Christian religion and 
its modification by Greek thought, and the universal social 
or institutional structure added by the Roman people, the 
composite civilization of mediaeval and modern times was 
produced as the outcome of this cosmopolitan era. 

The Rhetorical and Dialectic Schools. — In the early days 
of the sophists, a movement toward the formation of two 
distinct groups of teachers became evident : the one sought 
to prepare pupils for direct participation in public life 
by a training in the art of speaking ; the other afforded a 
training in argumentative power in speculative questions of 
metaphysical or ethical import usually debated in private. In 
the latter half of the fourth century this movement resulted in 
the formation of two distinct types of school. Of these, the 
rhetorical schools were the most distinct, the most numerous, 
and the most influential practically. The work of the soph- 
ists had given scientific shape to the study of grammar and 
of rhetoric. To this work Plato and Aristotle, especially 
in his philosophical treatise on rhetoric, contributed. With 
the formulation of the science of logic by Aristotle, a third of 
these studies became organized. This study of the structure 
and arrangement of thought was pursued from two points of 
view : when followed with a view to determining the probable 
truth, it was termed dialectic ; when followed with a view to 
gaining the victory over an opponent, it was termed eristic. 
Naturally it was the latter that had a place in the rhetorical 
schools, which aimed to give this practical power of overcom- 
ing an opponent, and for the most part was a direct prepa- 



Greek Educatiojt 163 

ration for the law courts before which any Athenian citizen 
might be called to present or defend his own case. The 
work of these schools, which became very numerous both at 
Athens and throughout Greece, was to carry on the study 
of these formal subjects, just then being organized ; or, tak- 
ing for granted that general culture had been acquired in 
the lower schools, to train more technically in the effective 
expression of thought. While the work of these rhetorical 
teachers was formal, it was not necessarily superficial, as was 
charged against the work of their progenitors, the sophists, 
but for the most part consisted in the study of the choice and 
sequence of words and the effective arrangement of thought, 
together with a drill in argumentation and forensic presen- 
tation. 

To us such an aim seems narrow; but this power of effec- 
tive utterance was to them, as the use of grammatical English 
is now, at once the test of an education and an indication of 
a higher culture than that contained in the mere unstudied 
use of words. Such a scope for the activities of an educated 
man seems to us to be very limited ; but it must be recalled 
that public oratory then performed the function that is now 
divided between the press, the pulpit, the bar, and the uni- 
versity. 

As Socrates formed the transition from the sophists to 
the philosophical schools, so Isocrates (393-338 e.g.) repre- 
sented the transition from these latter to the rhetorical 
schools. There were undoubtedly many of these schools 
before his time, but with him the transition from the teach- 
ing methods of the sophists to a distinct type of institutional 
work holding definite aims, was complete. He was the most 
distinguished and the most successful of all these rhetorical 
teachers, and from his school came some of the most suc- 
cessful men of that generation. From many points of view 
he is hardly to be distinguished from the sophists, among 
whom indeed he numbered himself; yet, in the modesty of 



164 History of Education 

his promises, in the distinct announcement that he pro- 
fessed to be able only to improve natural talent and that 
he trained for public service as well as individual advantage, 
he differed from the typical sophists. In truth, before the 
close of Isocrates's life the typical sophists had been re- 
placed by the two types of teachers under consideration. 
On the other hand, Isocrates^ was just as anxious to be dis- 
tinguished from the Platonic type of philosophers, who 
wasted their time in discussions concerning pure being, 
profitless alike to themselves and to the public. 

The school of Isocrates did much toward making Athens 
the center of the intellectual culture of the world ; for schools 
like his continued to offer the highest practical training not 
only to the Greek but to the Oriental and to the Roman for 
many centuries afterward. While these schools were all 
private, they formed a component part of the higher educa- 
tional system. 

The dialectic schools were in reality but the minor philo- 
sophical schools of a type similar to the great philosophical 
schools, and are to be considered as subordinate to them. 
The following description of the work of these schools will 
answer for this less important type as well. 

The Philosophical Schools. — Plato and Aristotle gath- 
ered around themselves definite bodies of students who 
were recognized as disciples and who in themselves formed 
a "school." But so long as there was no other bond than 
community of ideas, such a school could not be very distinct 
nor permanent. Continuity and definiteness were added by a 
variety of circumstances. First among these was the acqui- 
sition of a local habitation, first in the public gymnasia, — 
Plato in the Academy, and Aristotle in the Lyceum, — and 
then in private grounds attached to these. Continuity was 
first obtained by the custom instituted by Plato and Aristotle 
and continued by their successors, of bequeathing the head- 



Greek Education 165 

ship of the school, their manuscripts and even their property 
to a designated disciple. These scholarchs, or heads of the 
schools, adopted the despised custom of the sophists of 
charging fees, which, together with bequests from students, 
resulted in building up a permanent endowment and also in 
giving definiteness to the school as an institution. 

To the Academy and the Lyceum were added two others 
which became of even greater importance during the centu- 
ries preceding the Christian era. These were the school of 
Zeno, who taught in the painted porch of one of the 
Athenian temples, and whose disciples were hence called 
Stoics, and that of Epicurus, who taught in his own private 
grounds. As has been pointed out, the Aristotelian school 
through its lack of independence and the loss of its materials, 
soon ceased to exert much influence upon the development 
of thought in Greece, But the other three, possessing even 
a religious as well as scholastic character, developed into 
sects. As these formed the models for many minor philo- 
sophical schools, a further explanation of their character will 
be helpful in forming a general idea of the educational life of 
later Greece. 

The attendance upon some of these schools was very large. 
Theophrastus, the successor to Aristotle in the headship of the 
Lyceum, is said to have had more than two thousand pupils at 
one time. The scholarchs were aided by a staff of assistants 
who collectively constituted the school. Lycon, the successor 
of Theophrastus, bequeathed the school to his assistants col- 
lectively, so it became necessary to elect a scholarch. This 
custom of election came in time to prevail in most of these 
schools. In later times, however, when these offices became 
salaried, the custom obtained of establishing as scholarchs 
imperial officers, appointed by the local council (usually 
after some form of examination), or by the emperor himself. 

In addition to the immediate group of assistants and 
favorite pupils, a great number of minor teachers gathered 



1 66 History of Education 

aroand these four great schools of philosophy. Besides 
these teachers of official capacity, there were numerous 
private tutors who prepared students for entrance to these 
higher schools, helped the younger students in their exer- 
cises, and directed them in their reading and their note work. 
The philosophical schools thus became the center of intel- 
lectual activity in all Greece. 

The character of the work of these schools became very 
different from that in the time of their founders. From the 
very first, the scholarchs attempted to set forth the ideas of 
the respective founders of the schools. There was little 
attempt to apply the ideas of the great teachers in investiga- 
tion, research, or even in discussion of new topics. Their 
work came to be more and more largely that of apprecia- 
tion and comment. Platonism, Stoicism, and Epicureanism 
adapted themselves to phases of Roman ideals of life. But 
not only did the Lyceum fail to develop new doctrine ; it did 
not succeed in keeping alive the old. For the most part the 
work of these schools, though directed toward a different 
object, became as formal and artificial as the work of the 
sophists. In all there grew up a reverence for the written 
word that had great influence, literary and religious as well as 
educational. Educationally this formalism was a distinct i 
decline. 

Along the lines of these greater schools there developed 
many minor ones, for the most part connected with some 
religious cult, as well as with an educati6nal training. The 
principles of the new Greek education had taken firmi hold, i 
as these were but the embodiment of the new ideas. The 
principle of individuality of the sophists was now triumphant' 
in practice, even in the philosophical schools; for they taughtj 
no longer the universal systems of their founders, but were: 
interested only in particular aspects of the subject and em-j 
phasized only some phases of the ideas of their masters. \ 

Philosophy is no longer dominated by political or ethicall 



Greek Edtication 167 

interests ; in time, not even by scientific interests. All is 
approached from the individualistic point of view. As the 
individual had previously freed himself from the state and 
from society, so now he seeks the same freedom from any 
universal philosophy. In the remnants of the great philo- 
sophical schools, as in the many minor schools, the ideas of 
the super-civic exxellence of man and of the superiority of 
the intellectual and contemplative above the social and prac- 
tical life, find a basis. With ideals of life which hold them 
together as no Greek political organization can any more ; 
with opportunity for personal development and for the attain- 
ment of happiness that Greek civic life no longer offers ; with 
rites of initiation ; with a specific training for adherents ; often 
with secret doctrines to be carefully guarded ; with great, often 
absolute, control over disciples — these schools offer to the 
Greek of this later period a substitute for patriotism, for reli- 
gion, for education, such as was furnished in early days by the 
one comprehensive institution, the city state. And through 
these new institutions, with power of propagation and multi- 
plication, Greek ideas are spread throughout the Mediter- 
ranean world. 

The University of Athens was an outgrowth of these 
philosophical schools, which it in time included, and of the 
modified character of the institutional organization of the edu- 
cation of the ephebes. During the period of the formation of 
the philosophical schools radical changes were occurring in 
this important stage of the old education. We have already 
seen that as an important phase of the transitional period the 
education of the youth at this age became more largely intel- 
lectual than physical. In time the compulsory provision was 
reduced from two years to one and after the Macedonian con- 
quest made wholly voluntary. A change of even more radical 
character that shortly followed, was the admission of foreign- 
born students to the ephebic corps. Under the Roman regime 



1 68 History of Educatioit 

the foreign body, drawn mostly from Rome and Italy but 
also from Greek colonies and Oriental peoples, became quite 
as numerous as the native. The year of study now required 
of the youth under state control was for the most part merely 
introductory to a much longer period of study. Formal mili- 
tary exercises were kept up, at least those in the way of 
celebration of ancient victories and the ceremonial visits to 
localities possessing great historic interest. The ephebic 
corps was under the control of a rector elected annually by 
the Senate and Assembly of Athens. This officer had charge 
of the conduct of the boys and supervised their attendance 
upon the lectures of the leading philosophical schools. There 
is evidence, however, that this attendance did not extend to 
the Epicurean school, but only to the other three. 

Corresponding changes of importance occurred in the 
philosophical schools and contributed to the establishment 
of one unified institution. The military operations of 
Philip II of Macedon (200 b.c.) and the later devastations 
of Roman generals resulted in injury, if not destruction, of 
the gymnasia in the suburbs. These schools then followed 
the Stoics into the city, where they were conducted in private 
theaters and in public gymnasia, especially those of Ptolemy 
and later of Hadrian. 

With the growth of the requirement that the ephebes attend 
these schools, a further change occurred. The council or as- 
sembly of citizens came to exercise control over the selection 
of the heads of these schools and to support them out of the pub- 
lic funds. Thus grew up the custom, so foreign to early Athe- 
nian ideas, of a state-supported higher education. With the 
Roman emperors, during the first century of the Christian 
era, definite support through endowment or imperial salary 
was given to numerous chairs in philosophy and in rhetoric. 
From the time that the Athenian public gave its support, the 
highest professor and later all the professors in philosophy 
were termed sophists. Evidently the term at this time had 



Greek Education 169 

no such connotation of reproach as it contains in more recent 
times. The Roman emperors, Vespasian (69-79 a.d.), who 
began this imperial support, Hadrian (i 17-128 a.d.), and 
the Antonines (138-180 a.d.), were especially interested in 
making the University of Athens the center of learning for 
the empire. While the professional staff was probably but 
ten or twelve in number, its work was supplemented by that 
of a large number of assistants and instructors, paid from the 
fees of the students, and by that of a large number of peda- 
gogues who attended the younger and wealthier students. 

Student life was now prolonged to a period from three or 
four to even seven years in length. The ephebic organiza- 
tion degenerated into one resembling student clubs or secret 
societies. During the early Christian centuries the university 
life presented many features resembling those of university 
life in mediaeval or modern times. Among these were the 
wearing of a distinctive gown, the initiation into the secret 
societies, and the hazing of new students. So strong is the 
resemblance even in matters of organization and in methods 
of work that it is argued by many that the continuity of life, 
or of tradition at least, between the university at Athens and 
the early mediaeval university, was not broken. This view, 
however, is not generally accepted. 

As the center of classical learning and hence of pagan 
influence, the university aroused the opposition of the early 
Christian emperors and was suppressed by Justinian in 529 
A.D. Long before this, however, the school had lost much of 
its influence, and it was only a few philosophical teachers, 
chiefly of the Neoplatonic school, that at the decree of the 
emperor fled into Persia. 

The University at Alexandria was one of a number of 
such institutions, such as those at Rhodes and Tarsus, that 
sprung up in the East as a result of the spread of Greek 
ideas and institutions. Here under the influence of the Ptole- 



170 History of Education 

mies (323-30 B.C.), who carried out the idea of their master 
Alexander in making this new city the center of influence, of 
power, of culture, and of learning in the East, there developed 
an institution that for many centuries outshone the parent 
institution at Athens. The first of the Ptolemies founded 
a library and instituted a search for written documents such 
as has never been paralleled save at the time of the Renais- 
sance. Moreover, he founded and supported a museum, or 
academy, where men of letters and investigators resided at 
royal expense, and constituted in connection with the library 
an institution so like the modern university that it has been 
given this name. The second Ptolemy secured the library 
and the manuscripts of Aristotle, together with many Jewish, 
Egyptian, and other Oriental works. The third Ptolemy 
seized the original copies of many of the Greek tragedians 
stored at Athens. The passion for the collection of books 
reached such a stage that this Ptolemy, taking advantage of 
the wandering habits of Greek scholars, required that every 
visitor to Alexandria should leave behind him a copy of any 
manuscript that he might possess. 

Not only did Alexandria possess the manuscripts of Aris- 
totle, but here alone, of all these institutions of higher learn- 
ing, the Aristotelian method of investigation was employed. 
To be sure, this was during only one or two brief periods and 
then, for the most part, in the subjects of astronomy and 
geography. Yet in this brief space of time much progress 
was made toward determining the measurement of the diame- 
ter and circumference of the earth, the distances of the sun and 
moon, and the precession of the equinox. Here was formu- 
lated the Ptolemaic theory of the universe, which, though 
wrong in its fundamental conceptions, was so near right in its 
methods that it served with remarkable accuracy as a basis 
for determining the motion of the heavenly bodies and the 
prediction of astronomic events. Here, too, were carried on 
most of the labors and here were made many of the dis- 



Greek Education 171 

coveries of the physicist Archimedes of Syracuse. Here 
EucHd perfected that branch of mathematics which bears his 
name. While the greatest advance was made along the lines 
of mathematics, yet some progress was made in the natural 
sciences as well. But for the most part, it must be admitted 
that the work at Alexandria, like that in the Grecian philo- 
sophical schools, consisted in little else than dreary comment 
and exposition of what the master or, more often yet, the 
manuscript version of the master said. 

In the literary activities of the university, possessing 
though it did the masterpiece of Greek literature, the profit- 
less character of the work was even more pronounced. Its 
characteristics were pedantic criticism, detached and puerile 
comment, formal imitation, attempts at a style stilted and 
designed for mere effect. This more than anything else 
marks the decadence of Greek style. 

Using the word school in the sense of a somewhat indefinite 
center of several conflicting tendencies in thought rather than 
in that sense applied to the Greek philosophical schools, each 
held together by a definite body of doctrine, — the Alexan- 
drian philosophical school was of later development than 
either the scientific or literary movement connected with the 
Alexandrian university. While Greek philosophical thought 
had always been represented there and had come in contact 
with Oriental philosophy and religion, it was not until near the 
opening of the Christian era that the development growing 
out of such contact became of general interest Then began 
a movement headed by Philo of Judaea, toward the harmoniza- 
tion of Greek philosophy — especially the Platonic — and 
the Hebrew religion. The Scriptures were held to contain 
all philosophy, not explicitly but by implication. The effort 
followed to interpret the Scriptures, necessarily by allegorical 
method, so that they would harmonize, in somewhat the same 
manner as Greek myth had been made to harmonize with 
later Greek philosophical and ethical thought. Plato was held 



172 History of Education 

to be but " Moses speaking Attic." Identifying the Platonic 
idea of a divine sense for ideas with the Hebrew idea of inspira- 
tion and the idea of a theosophical revelation to the individual 
thinker, there developed a type of philosophy — the Neopla- 
tonic — that had great influence in subsequent centuries. 

In a similar way Christian thought was early introduced 
into Alexandria, where its followers attempted a similar har- 
monization of Christianity with Greek philosophy that resulted 
in the development of Gnosticism. Here the early Christian 
Fathers were educated, and from these general sources, that 
is the north African intellectual centers, proceeded that for- 
mulation of Christian doctrine that is yet accepted as the 
orthodox. 

With the fall of Alexandria into Mahometan power (640 
A.D.) all this intellectual activity ceased, or what little was left 
was transferred to the Saracens, to be later revived in Saracen 
science and philosophy at Bagdad and Cordova. The library 
was destroyed by the first caliph, furnishing, it is said, fuel 
sufficient for four thousand public baths for a period of six 
months. 

FUSION WITH ROMAN EDUCATION. — After the Roman 
Conquest (146 B.C.) Greek culture in general was rapidly 
appropriated by the Roman conquerors, and the education of 
the cosmopolitan period extended its boundaries without 
changing its character. 

The elementary education, consisting of the grammatical 
study of language, the secondary education, consisting of the 
rhetorical study of literature and the development of oratorical 
power, and at least the institutional side of higher education, 
consisting of philosophical schools, universities, and libraries 
were largely appropriated by the Romans and given further 
systematization. In its later phase Roman education, when 
" captive Greece took captive her rude conqueror," is but one 
aspect of the cosmopolitan education of Greece. 



Greek Education 17; 



REFERENCES 

Bliimmer, Home Life of the Ancient Greeks, Ch. III. (London, 1893.) 
Bosanquet, The Education of the Young in Plato'' s Repiiblic. (Cambridge, 

1900.) 
Burnet, Aristotle on Education. (Cambridge, 1903.) 
Capes, University Life in Ancient Athens. (London, 1877.) 
Davidson, Education of the Greek People. (New York, 1892.) 
Davidson, Aristotle and the Ancient Education Ideals. (New York, 1898.) 
Grote, History of Greece, Ch?,. LXVII, LXVIIL (London, 1850.) 
Kingsley, Alexandria and Her Schools. (London, 1854.) 
Lane, Elementary Greek Education. (Syracuse, 1895.) 
Laurie, Historical Survey of Pre-Christiatt Education, pp. 196-300. (New 

York and London, 1895.) 
Mahaffy, Old Greek Education. (New York and London, i8g8.) 
MahafFy, Greek Life and Thojtght. (London, 1887.) 
Monroe, Source Book in the History of Education for the Greek and Roman 

Period, Part L (New York, 1901.) 
Nettleship, Theory of Greek Education in Plato''s Republic, in Abbott's 

Hellenica. (London, 1880.) 
Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship. (Cambridge, 1903.) 
St. John, Mariners and Customs of A tide nt Greece. (London, 1842.) 
'SMiWn.ns, National Education in Greece. (London, 1873.) 
Selections from Thucydides, Plutarch, Aristophanes, Xenophon, Plato, and 

Aristotle. (Given in Source Book.) 



TOPICAL QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY 

1. In what respects did the city state, through its demands upon its 
citizens, furnish an education ? (See De Coulanges, The Ancient City, and 
Fowler, City State of the Greeks atid Romans.) 

2. What educational ideals and practices are given by implication or by 
direct delineation in the following passages in the Iliad: I, 52-302 ; II, 35- 
380, 445-482; IX, 50-180; X, 335-579; XI, 617-809; XVIII, 245-318; 
XIX, 40-275 ? 

3. To what extent are the ideals of old Greek education expressed in 
the oration of Pericles, given by Thucydides? (See Soiirce Book, pp. 24- 
31.) To what extent are the ideals given therein expressions of the new? 

4. What further connection between the political and social changes in 
Greek life and the new education can be discovered in the more detailed 
account given by Grote, Curtius, Thirlwell, Zeller, Holm, etc ? 



174 History of Education 

5. In what respects are the problems of education in the transition period 
similar to those of the present time? 

6. What concrete changes in education characteristic of the transitional 
period are indicated in The Clouds of Aristophanes? 

7. In what respects are the activities and the ideals of the sophists 
similar to those of present-day educators? 

8. To what extent does Plato's idealistic solution of the educational 
problem offer suggestion concerning the formulation of the educational aim 
at the present time? Educational method? Educational organization ? 

9. What similarity is there between the approach to the problems of 
education made by Plato in The Laws (Bk. II, pp. 653-654), and the 
approach made by students in the present time? 

10. To what extent are Aristotle's arguments concerning the fundamental 
importance of education to society, or the state, valid at the present time? 

11. How far does Aristotle's solution of the ethical problem of the con- 
flict between the individual and social welfare offer a solution of the edu- 
cational problem of the present ? 

12. What are the arguments given by the educational theorists that 
explain the peculiar use made by the Greeks of music in education? Of 
gymnastics ? 

13. How far was the Greek method in education superior to the method 
of the present time? 

14. How far is the Socratic method of instruction valid? 



Chronological Survey of Roman and Early Christian Education 



Political Events 
AND Personages 



Traditional founding 
of city . . .753 
Kings . . 753-509 
Decemvirs . . 451 
Censors . . . 444 
Italian Wars 343-272 



300 B.C. 

Punic Wars 264-146 
Death of Cato . 148 
Conquest of 

Greece . . . 146 
Reforms of the 

Gracchi . 132-121 
Social War . 91-89 
War of Marius and 

Sulla . . 89-79 
First Triumvirate 59 
Csesar's 

conquests . 58-52 



55 B.C. 
Conspiracy of 

Catiline ... 52 
War of Caesar and 

Pompey . 49-48 
Death of Caesar . 44 
Second 

Triumvirate . 43 
Reign of Augustus 

31 B C.-14 A.D. 
Tiberius r. 14-37 a.d. 
Nero . . r. 54-68 
Vespasian r. 69-79 
Trajan . r. 98-117 
Hadrian r. 117-138 
Antonines r. 138-180 
Public sale of 

Empire . . . 193 
Roman citizenship 
conferred on all free 
provincials . . 212 
Absolute monarchy 
of Diocletian 284-305 
Constantine 

r. 306-337 



Poets, 

Dramatists, 
Historians, 

ETC. 



Andronicus 

c. 284-ir. 204 
Naevius 

c. 264-194 
Plautus 254-1" 
Ennius . 239-169 
Cato . 234-1 
Terence 189-159 
Lucretius 97-53 
Varro . 116-27 
Cicero . 106-53 
Nepos . 99-54 
Sallust . 86-34 



Caesar . 100-44 
Virgil . 70-19 
Horace. . 6~ 
Sallust . 86-34 
Ovid 

43 B.C.-18 A.D 

Livy 

59 B.C. -18 A.D 
Pliny, the 

Elder 23-79 
Quintilian 

35 A D.-95 
Tacitus 

C. 55 A.D. -120 

Plutarch 46-125 
Pliny, the 
Younger 

61-105 
Juvenal 

. f- 55-140 
Suetonius 

c. 75-160 



313 A.D, 
Toleration of 

Christianity . 313 
Council of Nicaea 325 
Julian the 

Apostate 361-363 
Goths invade 

Empire . . . 376 
Final div. of Emp. 395 
Exposure of infants 

prohibited . . 374 
Last Roman 

triumph . . 404 
Alaric sacks 

Rome . . . 410 
Battle of Chalons 451 
Empire combined 

with the East 476 



Philosophers, 

Moralists, 

Church 

Fathers, etc. 



Seneca 

54 B.C.-39 A.D 

Epictetus 

fl. c. 90 A.D 
Marcus Aurelius 

121-1 
Tertullian 

c. 150-230 

Clement of 

Alexandria 

c. 150-C. 215 

Cyprian 

c. 200-255 
Origen . 185-254 
Plotinus 204-270 
Porphyry 

233-c. 301 



Eusebius 

265-340 
Ausonius 

c. 310-C. 393 
Symmachus 

c- 345-405 
Apollonius 
Sidonius 

c. 430-480 
Martianus 
Capella 

fl. c. 500 



Writings 

Possessing 

Educational 

Significance 



Latinized 

Odyssey . c. 250 
Plautus. 

Bacchides 189 
Cato, de Agriciil- 
tura, earliest 
work in Latin 
prose . c. 175-150 
Varro, 

Disciplinarji m 
libri uoveni 

Cicero, 

de Orators . 55 



Horace, Odes and 

Satires 35-8 B.C. 
Tacitus, 

de O rata rib us 
79 A.D 
Quintilian, 

de Oratoria (jt 
Martial, 

Epigrams 90-99 
Pliny, 

Epistles , 97-108 
Juvenal, 

Satires 100-126 
Suetonius, Lives 

of Rhetoricians 
c. 121 
Marcus Aurelius, 

Meditatio)is 

c. 161 
Tertullian, Pre- 
scription Against 

Heresies 
Clement, The 

Educator, 

Stromata, etc. 



Basil . 331-374 
Ambrose 340-397 
Gregory of 
Nyssa 

c. 343-<r. 394 
Jerome . 331-420 
Chrysostom 

344-404 
Augustme 

354-43°! 



Educational 
Events 



Laws of Twelve 
Tables . . . 451 

First mention of 
Ludus . . . 449 



Andronicus reaches 

Rome . . . 272 
Spurius Carvilius 

founds school . 260 
First Latin play 

at Rome . . 240 
Paulus ^milius 

brings Greek 

library to Rome 167 
Crates est. first gram. 

school and teaches 

Greek . . .167 
Greek rhetoricians 

expelled . . 161 
First private 

library . . c. 150 
Censors expel Latin 

rhetoricians . 92 



First public 

library ... 39 
Palatine Library 

founded ... 28 
First Imperial 

support of 

schools c. 75 A.D. 
Antoninus Pius 

subsidizes educa- 
tion in the 

Provinces 138-161 
Caracalla destroys 

foundation of 

Alexandrian 

University . . 217 
Severus appoints 

teachers of 

mathematics at 

Rome . . . Z18 
Constantine extends 

privileges of 

teachers 

321, 326, 333 



Jerome, Letters, 

to Lceta, to 

Gaiidentiits, 

etc. 
Donatus, 

Grammar 

c. 400 
Augustine, 

Cojifessiotis 
Capella, 

Marriage of 

Philology and 

Mercnry 
Priscian, 

Grammar 

<:.5oo 



Julian licenses 

teachers and 

forbids Christians 

teaching , . 361 
Gratian orders 

payment of 

teachers' salaries 

in provincial 

capitals and 

establishes 

schedule of 

salaries . . . 376 
Death of 

Hypatia . . 415 
All teachers to be 

licensed . , . 425 
Syriac commentaries 

on Aristotle . 450 



CHAPTER IV 

THE ROMANS. EDUCATION AS TRAINING FOR PRAC- 
TICAL LIFE 

GENERAL CHARACTER OF ROMAN EDUCATION. Domi- 
nant Institutions and the Genius of the People. — In many 
respects the genius of the Roman people was anttpvodal, in 
some respects complementary, to that of the Greeks. Domi- 
nated by the same institution, the city state, upon which 
their civilization, like that of the Greeks, was based, they took 
a radically different course of development. It is in the 
results of this course rather than in its causes, that we are 
here interested. 

The Roman was not one who found satisfaction in the 
attainment for its own sake to a subjective state, a state of 
happiness, a life of contemplation, of aesthetic enjoyment, of 
intellectual activity. More characteristic of his genius was 
the striving for some external object ; the accomplishment of 
some concrete purpose lying outside of his own thought life, 
of some form of excellence or achievement of concrete, even 
of material, value to his fellows, and similarly striven for 
by them. 

Practical Character of the Roman Genius. — The genius 
of the Romans was, in a word, wholly a practical one, the 
great merit of which was that it accomplished concrete results 
by adapting means to ends. On the other hand, the Greek 
genius, as will be recognized through a consideration of the 
fullest development of the Greek mind in their philosophers, 
possessed a peculiar power of defining proper aims in life, 

176 



The Romans 177 

of determining the principles underlying conduct, of attaining 
to the ultimate analysis of reality. At least these are the 
things that the Greeks sought for ; and we recognize that the 
Greeks defined for all time those things, that have been by 
alTages deemed the most worthy objects of the present life, — 
assthetic enjoyment, intellectual power, moral personality, 
political freedom, social excellence, — called culture. The 
work of the Romans was the practical one of furnishing the 
means, the institutions, or^themachinery for realizing these 
ideals. Hence they have ever been looked upon as a utiHta- 
rian people. They borrowed the Greek idea of a confederate 
government and developed it into a universal empire ; they 
borrowed the Greek idea of law and developed it into a sys- 
tem of legal principles that even yet guides modern nations 
in their complicated life; they adopted the religion of a 
despised sect of a despised race and made of it the religion 
of the civilized world, the one by which they subdued the 
savage world. In all of these respects and in a multitude of 
less important ways, the Romans showed their genius in 
elaborating the institutional organization necessary to make 
effective the aspirations of other people. If the ideals of 
modern life are largely drawn from Greek and Hebrew 
sources, its institutions are even more thoroughly Roman in 
their origin and nature. 

Roman Standard of Judgment. — This general character- 
istic suggests a further one. Contrasted with the Greek 
tendency to measure all things by the standard of reasonable- 
ness, or harmony, or proportion, we have the Roman ten- 
dency to judge ever by the usefulness, the effectiveness of a 
thing. The Greek estimate was the intellectual or aesthetic 
one resulting from the consideration of ultimate aims or 
values ; the Roman estimate was the utilitarian one drawn 
from a consideration of the serviceableness of a thing as 
judged by its relation to institutional life. For this reason 
the Romans tended to look upon the Greeks as a visionary, 

N 



178 History of Education 

unpractical people, while the Greeks considered the Romans 
somewhat as sordid barbarians, with force of character and 
military strength, but with no appreciation of the higher 
aspects of life and of culture. The Greeks were imaginative, 
impulsive in their actions, and joyous in their view of life; 
the Romans were matter of fact in their estimate of things, 
grave and sedate in their bearing, severe in their standards 
of conduct, and superior to the Greeks in dignity and moral 
force. "The Greeks never lost their youth; the Romans 
were always men." 

Inflttence of Religion on Education. — This contrast be- 
tween the characters of the two peoples is well illustrated 
in the diverse influences of rehgion upon their education. 
While the Romans possessed household gods of the same 
character as those of the Greeks, these gods, representing 
general forces, were quite different until they came to be 
modified by Greek ideas. The Roman gods of the earlier 
/period were impersonal representations of natural forces 
and social activities. They were mysterious beings with- 
out human power or feelings, who influenced human life 
without sympathy with its hopes or joys or fears as with^ 
the Greeks. There was no Olympus, no marriage, no off- 
spring ; they were merely a crowd of oppressive beings 
of mysterious character, constantly interfering with human 
affairs, yet removed from the circle of sympathy with them. 
As a result there existed a constant necessity for placating 
and appeasing them, not so much through joyous activities, 
as with the Greeks, as through an elaborate ceremonial that 
was often but httle removed from the incantations of primi- 
tive man. In the course of historical development, especially 
upon the identification of the Roman gods with the person- 
ality of the Greek gods, this severity was much mitigated. 
Yet with the Romans rehgion always remained a practical 
means for getting on in the world, — a means for regulating 
everyday life, — and hence was more closely connected with 



The Romans 1 79 

political and business affairs than with the Greeks., Every- 
thing was sacred, everything was to be done in an established 
way, every act had its appropriate religious ceremony. There 
was a god of fallowing, of plowing, of sowing, of covering the 
grain and of harrowing ; a god of the grain in germination, a 
god of grain in the joint, a god of the grain in the sheath, and 
so on for every phase of the life of the husbandman and of 
every other interest or activity in life. Religion was no 
exalted faith, no lofty aspiration after virtue, no idealization 
of the beautiful, no attempt to reach the life of intellectual 
activity or of contemplation or of highest religious and 
ethical significance. Religion had little influence of an 
intellectual and aesthetic character upon the life of the people 
and consequently upon their education. On the other hand,' 
while full of superstition, it had a distinct ethical influence 
foreign to that of the Greeks ; it consecrated love of country, 
hallowed the family relation, preserved the sanctity of the 
oath, developed the sense of duty — all of which things the 
Greek re;ligion did not do. These influences on life con- 
stituted the contribution of Roman reUgion to Roman educa- , 
tion, for the development of these traits was the practical aim 
of their education. 

Contributions of Rome to Civilization. — The permanent 
contributions of the Romans to civilization were, then, of 
two great types : Through their development and organiza- 
tion of law they furnished that institutional organization of 
life that serves to a large extent as the basis of modern 
social life ; through their influence on the practical virtues, 
chiefly through the law and the state, but also later through 
the adaptation of the Stoic philosophy and the propaga- 
tion of the Christian religion, they contributed to the exalta- 
tion of the moral conception of life. Thus it follows 
that they have exerted much less of permanent influence on 
education, in the narrower sense, than have the Greeks. No 
science, no speculative philosophy, no contribution to the 



i8o History of Education 

abstract intellectual or aesthetic elements in education followed 
from their conception of life and religion. Their influence 
was wholly the practical one of adaptation and organization. 

Roman Ideal of Education shown in their Conception of 
Rights and Duties. — The rights of the Roman citizen — 
including by the time of the Antonines, the end of the 
second century a.d., practically all free citizens of the prov- 
inces — were five in number and all clearly defined by 
law. These were : the right of the father over his chil- 
dren {patria potestas); the right of the husband over his 
wife iinanus) ; the right of the master over his slaves {potes- 
tas dominica) ; the right of a freeman over another that the 
law gave him through contract or through forfeiture {mamis 
capere) ; and the right over property idoniiiiiitni). The free- 
man received these rights by birth, for by descent each Roman 
was a freeman, a citizen, and a member of a family. But 
after the earlier centuries these rights could also be acquired 
either by naturalization or adoption or by enfranchisement. 

Rights and Duties of a Father. — The right of the father 
was the strongest, the most characteristic, and the most 
important right of a Roman. When the child, soon after 
birth, was laid at the feet of its father, as a reHgious cere- 
mony, it could either be lifted up by him and thus accepted 
into the family ; or, on account of deformity, or poverty, or 
other cause, it could be left to be placed at some crossroads 
to die or to be carried into slavery. This custom was not sub- 
ject to the abuse prevalent in Greece; but, since this was a 
religious ceremony, the Roman father was presumed to have, 
and usually did have, some good reason for rejecting a 
child ; this custom, which appears so monstrous to modern 
ideas, was to them a most practical way of serving the state 
by eliminating all unworthy citizens and of preserving the 
stability and the purity of the family. This right over his 
child the father did not lose even when the son became a 
citizen, a soldier, and a property holder in his own right, and 



The Romans i8i 

even an officer of the government. Nor did he lose his right 
over his daughter at her marriage unless his consent to the 
rehnquishment of that right was given in a special religious 
ceremony transferring her into the other family. This power 
of life and death, the right of executing all law. upon his 
own children, resided in the father until late in imperial 
times ; though then the few recorded instances of its exer- 
cise were occasions for popular tumults. Long before this 
time, this right, together with the accompanying one of the 
sale of a child, was modified by legal restriction in the 
form of corresponding duties. 

In truth this union of obligations with rights was a principle 
fundamental to Roman thought, and by them made funda- 
mental to all modern law. Every right has its correspond- 
ing obligation. The Greek's highest conception of life was 
in terms of virtue, of happiness, — in some form of personal 
satisfaction; the Roman's highest conception was given 
in some form of duty with its corresponding right ; life in 
terms of law or principle. One was essentially the aesthetic 
interpretation of life ; the other was essentially a moral view 
of life. 

Hence these great powers of the father were exercised for 
the good of the state and the good done the family by the per- 
formance of his duties respecting them ; for any negligence 
of these duties there was meted out a corresponding punish- 
menf^equally well specified in their law. Though the boy, at 
sixteen, assumed the toga of citizenship, served in the army 
(in the republican days), voted in the comitia, held office and 
property, yet the power of the father remained until dissolved 
by deaths 

RcHgioiLS. and Economic Duties. — As the head of a family 
and the possessor of goods, the father was a priest with reli- 
gious duties to perform. All the household activities, all 
relationships and special occasions, such as birthdays, fes- 
tal days, and marriages, were rendered sacred by religious 



1 82 History of Educatio7i 

ceremonials. Then, too, for the family he must participate 
in public rehgious worship. Each day had its minute duties 
of a religious kind prescribed by law or by custom. More- 
over, as the head of a household and the holder of property, 
he had many economic duties to perform far more important 
and burdensome than the similar interests of the Greeks. 
Each Roman in the olden days was a farmer, and the manage- 
ment of the estate as well as the actual work upon it formed 
a part of his pride in citizenship. So fundamental was this 
activity that when the Romans came to develop the conception 
and process of education, they gave to it the term indicative 
of this process, and cnltiira, culture, came to signify in the 
intellectual and spiritual life what agriculture, the cultiva- 
tion of the fields, meant for them in their practical life. The 
Romans were not, as the Greeks, averse to the industrial life. 
Even in imperial days, the boy of sixteen, if of well-to-do par- 
ents, prepared for military or civil service ; the boy of the 
poorer family entered into a trade with no detriment to his 
citizenship. And when yet later the numerous conquests 
crowded the ranks of all industrial and commercial occupa- 
tions with the slaves of the wealthier class, the empire made 
its distribution of food suppUes to support the poorer citizens 
and to prevent the depletion if not extinction of the free 
citizen class. Very early in the days of the republic the 
importance of this business training along with the agricul- 
tural appears, and the keeping of accounts becomes one of 
the earliest elements in their schooling. 

Political Duties. — So, the young man as well as the head 
of the family had specific duties of citizenship. In the days 
of the republic he sat in some of the various comitiae or 
public bodies. He had to take legal care of his property, 
make contracts, draw his will for presentation to one of these 
bodies, or later take part in some portion of the civil service. 
As a soldier, at all periods until the formation of the mer- 
cenary army, he had his military duties to perform. 



The Romans 185 

Now all of these duties demanded of the father and of the 
citizen, in return for the great privileges conferred upon 
them, a definite training through the years of boyhood that 
the appropriate abilities or virtues might be developed. 
Though this training was only to a slight extent, even in any 
historic period, furnished by the school, yet a definite educa- 
tion of positive character and great value was furnished by / 
the home. 

Elements in this Educational Ideal. — In the performance 
of these duties certain definite virtues or moral characteristics 
were demanded. The moral ideals of life formulated by 
the Romans do not present the development of the Greek 
ideal, for they do not contain the same idealistic elements. ( 
The virtues demanded were all of an extremely practical 
character, and they were formulated from an actual living • 
type. Manhood, as exemplified in living men or in well- , 
known historical personages, furnished the standards which 
the youth was expected to approximate. While the charac- 
teristics of these types furnished no exalted ideal, they at 
least were models permitting worthy imitation and exemplify- 
ing the practical virtues of a vigorous, successful people. 
These virtues appeared in the personal traits of the heroes 
exalted in the national legends and the poems of the later 
literature of the people. 

Foremost of these virtues was that of^j^iety, the^bedience 
to the commands of the gods and of parents. Piety contained 
the religious idea of reverence and of filial regard for pa- 
rental control. Together with modesty it approximated the 
Greek idea of reverence, the balance or harmony of conduct, 
though this ideal never received a formulation springing 
from an assthetic appreciation of conduct as it did with the 
Greeks. Manliness, or firmness, or what we term character 
{constantid) was a virtue, valued by the Romans and exem- 
plified in their lives more than in that of any other ancient 
people, though it hardly appeared in the Greek ideal of Hfe. 



184 History of Education 

As a result of this the other virtue of bravery or courage had 
much more of the idea of fortitude than did the correspond- 
ing Greek ideal. Since " Rome must never conclude a peace 
save as victor; " so no Roman must ever voluntarily quit a 
strife before having vanquished. There was none of the 
fear of excess that characterized the Greek ; the bravery of 
the Roman was buttressed by their idea of fortitude and of 
obedience, not qualified by any conception of temperance 
or of moderation in the performance of any activity, much 
less in that of physical bravery and of devotion to the state. 
To these virtues were added two more homely ones, charac- 
teristic of a practical people only and growing out of a life of 
industrial activity, where actual participation in the toil of life 
was considered a duty and not a disgrace. These were pru- 
dence, especially in the management of one's business affairs, 
and honesty or fair dealing in all economic relations. Y.'&x- 
nestness (^r^'Z^Z/rtj-), graveness, sedateness, sobriety in conduct, 
a dignity of bearing were substituted for the Greek idea of 
gracefulness. If viewed from the standpoint of the individ- 
ual, all were summed up in the jdeal of . duty ; if from the 
standpoint of the state, in the ideal of justice. Though at 
the beginning" the Greek ideal of virtue was largely that of 
devotion to the state, the ideal of physical bravery soon 
ceased to be its chief element ; their moral ideal was ever 
formulated in some form of virtue, in terms of personal sat- 
isfaction. In time their ideal became formulated in terms 
of happiness or in terms of intellectual activity. The Roman 
ideal, on the other hand, ever continued to keep as its basal 
element the idea of bravery or of virtue in the sense of devo- 
tion to the state. Virtue, then, in terms of duty, as stated 
in principles or in law, remained the Roman conception of 
life. Life in terms of virtue is the idealistic formulation of 
life ; life in terms of duty is the moral conception of life as 
formulated by the practical man. 

The elaboration of the details of this conception of hfe in 



The Romans 185 

terms of rights and duties was the great task of the Romans 
and their greatest contribution to civiHzation. This balance 
between rights and duties is preserved by the state and 
constitutes justice. Hence it is that the entire obhgations of 
man, as consisting in the performance of his duties and the 
maintenance of his rights could be summed up in his rela- 
tionship to the state, by which means justice among all men 
would be maintained. 

The Practical Education. — With a people to whom religion 
was merely a means for expediting the practical affairs of 
life, education could not be more idealistic. As rehgion 
never inspired to any exalted view of life, so education never 
became more than a preparation for life's practical duties. 
Just as mildew was kept from the grain, or rust and accident 
from the hinges of the door by the worship of appropriate 
gods or spirits, so each specific duty on the farm, — its plow- 
ing, reaping, preparing the grain, — each duty in the house- 
hold, each exercise in the martial camp or field, had its 
specific training, and education was but the sum of such prepa- ' 
rations for the practical duties of life. 

The Home as the Center of Education. — In a conception of 
education that for the most part has to do with the formation 
of moral character, schools can have but a minor place as an 
educational means. And so it was at Rome. Their place 
was taken by other institutions, above all others, the home. 
The whole tendency of Greek life was to minimize the im- 
portance of home hfe. Even in the highest expression of 
their ethical and social thought, in the educational system of 
Plato, the home was eliminated. It was quite the contrary 
at Rome : there the whole tendency was to magnify its im- 
portance. The peculiar power of the father exalted his 
functions and made the family the social unit, even in many 
legal respects. The moral importance of the home, as well 
as its legal and social importance, was emphasized. The 
father was responsible for the moral and physical training of 



1 86 



History of Education 



the boy. The mother held a position far superior to the 
place of women in Greece. Within the home she was digni- 
fied with a position of independence and responsibility. She 
was more the companion of her husband socially and more 
his partner in his management of the home than in Greece. 
She herself reared and cared for her own children instead of 
turning them over to a nurse. When somewhat grown up 
the boy became the companion of his father in place of being 
turned over to a slave or a pedagogue, as with the Greeks. 
When the Greek influence became powerful, though peda- 
gogues were, to be sure, introduced, it was only by the 
wealthier classes and then only as an adopted custom — one 




Life of a Roman Boy. From a Sarcophagus. 



that never became national in character. Speaking of his 
own education, the poet Horace (born 65 b.c.) says: — 

" If my life is pure and innocent and my friends love me, 
I owe it all to my father ; he, though not rich, for his farm 
was a poor one, would not send me to the school of Flavins 
(at Venusia), to which the first youths of the town, the sons 
of centurions, the great men there, used to go, with their 
bags and their slates on their left arm, taking the teacher's 
fee on the Ides of eight months in the year; but he had the 
spirit to take me, when a boy, to Rome, there to learn the 
liberal arts which any knight or senator would have his own 
sons taught. . . . He himself was ever present, a guardian 
incorruptible, at all my studies." 

This passage forms one of the few descriptions of school 
life — when schools are developed — that is to be found in 



/ 

The Romans 187 

Roman literature ; but the points to be noticed here are the 
great personal interest of the father in the education of his 
son and the prevailing moral content of that education. 

Almost two centuries later, when the corrupting influences 
that had entered into the cosmopolitan life of Rome were in 
full swing, in his satire (XIV) upon the vices of the Roman 
people, Juvenal formulates the ever memorable principle not 
only of Roman but of all education, — "The greatest reverence 
is due the child." This responsibility of the father for the 
education of his child, at least in the formation of his moral 
character, was not only of importance to the child but it also 
reacted upon the father. The stability and the perpetuation 
of these virtues, of a sturdy, rugged character among the 
ranks of the common people long after the majority of the 
families in the upper class, especially in the imperial court 
circles, had fallen into most vicious debauchery, was quite 
largely due to this restraining influence of the home and to 
the father's responsibility for the moral character of the boy. 
The continuation of the quotation from Juvenal indicates this : 
" If you are contemplating a disgraceful act, despise not your 
child's tender years, but let your infant son act as a check 
upon your purpose of sinning." 

In a similar way the influence of the mother was greater, 
as the position of woman in general was higher, at Rome than 
that among any other ancient people. This greater scope to 
her influence was not through her participation in public life, 
hence there is little direct mention of it ; but it was through 
this higher authority and freedom in the family. Even grant- 
ing that the mention of specific instances are not numerous, 
no other ancient people furnish cases of influence of women 
comparable with that of the mother of Coriolanus, the mother 
of the Gracchi, and others of a similar type. 

Biography as a Means. — The influence of the home was 
supplemented by that of concrete types of Roman manhood. 
No other people have so effectively used the personager of 



1 88 History of Education 

importance in their own history in the formation of the 
character of the youth of each generation. Their earliest 
literature consisted of the legends and heroic tales of the early 
Romans. Their songs were but the glorification of these same 
deeds. Something similar to this occurred in Greece in the 
earlier period. The Grecian heroes, however, were demigods 
or were constantly protected by the interposition of the gods, 
and hence were beyond imitation by the wiser men of later 
generations ; the Roman heroes, on the other hand, possessed 
virtues and performed deeds such as could be imitated by 
every Roman boy. ' As the Greeks sought to shape character 
,by poetry, music, gymnastic, and dancing, so the Romans did 
by these two means, — the influence of father and mother in 
the home, and that furnished by familiarity with the heroes 
of the past. 

An indication of the importance of such material as the 
content of education is furnished by Plutarch's Lives, which 
to the Romans were lectures on education. Though written 
by a Greek, such was probably their use at the time of their 
formulation, and such no doubt was the character of the liter- 
ature, if such it may be called in its rudimentary form, that 
formed the basis of the Roman education both in the home 
and in the school. The perennial interest aroused and the 
influence exerted by these writings are a slight indication of 
the value of this phase of Roman education. Mr. Lecky has 
called attention to the very potent influence of such personal 
ideals when embodied in personages near in time and place 
and nature ; more potent, indeed, than those of the subse- 
quent centuries wherein such ideals were furnished by saints, 
by those who possessed supernatural traits, or by Biblical 
characters living in remote centuries and possessed of racial 
characteristics of long ago. 

Thus again is found a trait of the practical mind : its ideals 
are found in the real, not in the imaginary, — not in a single 
trait idealized and personified. Its ideals are not too remote 



The Romans 189 

but are found in concrete personal forms of actual per- 
sonages. 

Imitation as the Method. — From what has been said it 
follows that the most important characteristic of the method 
of Roman education was imitation. While the Greeks em- 
phasized the assimilative character of the soul and hence 
sought for educational results by creating an environment of 
cultural value through public works of art, religious ceremo- 
nials, dramatic presentations, and a free and open life in^/ 
public places, the Romans emphasized the imitative character \ 
of the soul and sought for educational results by placing before 
the youth a concrete character to be followed. Though the 
pedagogue and the inspirer performed a somewhat similar 
service with the Greeks, yet the function of these was rather 
to control an ddirect; at least this was true of the pedagogue, 
who, because a slave, was not to be imitated. The Roman 
youth was to become pious, grave, reverential, courageous, 
manly, prudent, honest, by the direct imitation of his father and 
of old Romans of so heroic a character as to be embodied in 
their legends and histories, yet withal men who had actually 
walked the streets and had gathered in the Forum before him. 

While this use of imitation by the Romans was of less free 
character than the similar use by the Greeks, it was not the 
servile imitation of the Oriental. To begin with, it was the 
imitation of a living model, not of a lifeless form or a specific^/ 
custom relating to petty forms handed down from time imme- 
morial and without meaning to the imitator. So far as the 
Roman was bound by such traditional ways of doing things, 
the most important of such accepted customs were formula- 
tions of principles, embodied into a code of laws, interpreted 
by each successive generation to fit the needs of a developing 
civilization and of a people ever widening their contact with 
others. 

In one other important respect does the method of Roman 
education differ from that of the Greeks. With both peoples 



\. 



190 History of Education 

education was primarily a process of doing as opposed to 
one of instruction. Certain activities were undertaken to 
form certain approved habits. Subsequent to this earlier 
phase of their educational development, the Greeks added a 
^process of instruction to make such habits rational ; this the 
^■Romans never developed as a component part of their edu- 
cation. Though in later periods they adopted the Greek 
custom, it was not a native process, neither did it form an 
essential part of their conception of education nor become 
of general use and significance until well on in the imperial 
period. 

Then, too, there was a radical difference between the 
" doing process " of the Greeks and that of the Romans. In 
school the Greek boy was trained in gymnastics and dancing 
to produce a harmony and grace of physical development 
and of moral control : he learned to play the lyre and to 
repeat the Homeric poems with appropriate musical accom- 
paniment, all for the purpose of developing a harmony of 
the soiil. The Romans rejected as marks of effeminacy, 
such gymnastic training, dancing, music, literature; in brief, 
all such educational means as the Greeks employed. 
Through games, it is true, the Roman boy gained in physical 
development to a certain extent; but not through any organ- 
ized and systematized use of them. There were no gymna- 
siums, but physical development was secured on the martial 
fields and in the camp, and through the actual exercise with 
weapons, supplemented by the actual training which he got 
on the farm. In every respect the training of boys was 
either through an apprenticeship to the soldier, the farmer, 
the statesman, or by actual participation in these activities 
that were later required of them as citizens. Thus in method 
is seen the characteristic of the practical education, — the 
doing of the actual thing to be done — with no appreciation 
whatever of the training and instruction in certain selected 
activities that possess cultural value because they plant in 



The Romans 191 

the very nature of the child germs of a much fuller develop- 
ment in manhood, activities such as characterized the liberal 
education of the Greeks. 

PERIODS OF ROMAN EDUCATION. — Roman education 
divides itself into two great periods : the one wherein its 
ideals and practices are purely Roman, the other in which 
Greek influence is prominent and education becomes of a 
composite or cosmopolitan_character. This change bears 
some striking resemblances to the transition to the new 
Greek education at Athens ; but owing to the much more 
stable character of the Romans, the change was a more 
gradual one than in Greece and affected the masses of the 
people much less radically. In some respects, particularly 
in religion and to a certain extent in their laws, the Greek 
influence was early exerted upon the Romans. It was a 
tradition that the decemvirs visited Greece previous to the 
formulation of the Laws of the Twelve Tables (450 b.c). 
From Greece also at an earlier date they had drawn their 
alphabet. Yet no profound influence was exerted socially 
and little educationally until near the middle of the second 
century B.C. Subsequent to that time the Greek educational 
ideals may be said to dominate, so far as formal or institu- 
tional education is concerned. The somewhat radical con- 
quest in this respect was due to the fact that Rome had no 
native system of educational institutions to be supplanted. 
Various events may be taken as indicative of this change. 
Professor Laurie accepts as the point of demarcation 148 B.C., 
the death of Cato, who for so long and so strenuously opposed 
the growth of Greek ideas and customs. The date of the 
conquest of Greece by the Romans, 146 b.c, might with 
equal propriety be taken, since immediately thereafter many 
Greek scholars, Greek literature, and even libraries were 
transferred to Rome by the conquerors. The year 161 
possesses a similar significance, for at that time the senate 



192 History of Education 

at the instigation of the praetor decreed the expulsion of 
philosophers and rhetoricians from Rome. All three events 
indicate that the conquest was only begun, and that the 
dominance of Greek educative practices and institutions does 
not become complete until about the time of the empire (31 
B.C.) But if a specific personality must be found to make 
definite the delimitation, no individual would be so significant 
as Cicero (106-43 B-c), who was the first Roman to rise to 
prominence and to power through oratory ; and if a specific 
date is desired, 55 b.c, the date of publication of Cicero's 
work on Oratory would be most appropriate, for this work 
is the first formulation by a Roman of the Grecianized educa- 
tional ideal. Each of these general periods divides into two 
sub-periods. 

Period of Early Roman Education (753 -about 250 b.c). 
— During this period the features previously given concern- 
ing Roman education dominated completely. The rearing 
of the child was in the hands of the mother, the training of 
the boy in the hands of the father. The home was practi- 
cally the only school, though early the boy became the com- 
panion of his father in business, public and private, on the 
street, in the forum, and in the camp. Education was 
largely moral; discipline was severe; their ideals were rigor- 
ous. The shght literary element entering into their educa- 
tion was that connected with the religious and choral service, 
where religious choruses and national hymns were to be 
learned, and in connection with the Laws of the Twelve 
Tables. These fundamental laws of the republic, adopted 
451 and 450 B.C., remained the basis of Roman society for 
almost a thousand years. In the function they performed 
these laws resembled somewhat the laws of Lycurgus, though 
they dealt not with education but with the power of the father, 
property rights, religious services, political and military obli- 
gations, and similar subjects. In the broadest sense, they 
constituted the framework of Roman society and hence 



The Romans 193 

embodied the ideals of life that gave to education its con- 
crete ends. The relation of the laws to education in the 
narrower sense consisted, first, in the definite embodiment 
of the power of the father over the child and his duty con- 
cerning his training; second, in the custom followed for 
many generations of requiring every boy to learn the tables 
as they were posted in the Forum and to become perfectly 
familiar with their meaning. This in itself offered no insig- 
nificant intellectual training, though its practical character 
made such training very different from that which the Greek 
boy acquired from a similar familiarity with Homer. 

During the latter part of . this period, elementary schools 
furnished the rudiments of the arts of reading, writing, and 
arithmetic. Shortly after the introduction of the Twelve 
Tables, mention is made of them in the story of Virginia, who 
is said to have been seized from one of these schools by one 
of the decemvirs. Whether this be true or not, such schools 
appear long before the close of this period and supplement 
the education of the home in formal matters. Such ele- 
mentary schools were known as hidi {Indus, — play, sport, or 
a turning aside)} a name that indicates that their function 
was only supplementary, and that they were not essential to 
the real education of the Roman youth. Such schools were 
of a purely private character, and were held in some private 
home or in an unfrequented nook or porch of a temple or 
other public building. Even in the matter of the training in 
the arts of reading and calculating, these schools evidently, 
represented a '* diversion " from the ordinary custom of the 
home. 

Period of Introduction of Greek Schools. — The time from 
the middle of the third century to the middle of the first cen- 
tury constituted a period of transition, during which Greek 
customs and ideas were introduced. This period substan- 

1 A somewhat similar idea is contained in the Greek word for school, — schole, 
leisure. 



194 History of Education 

tialJy coincided with the period of national expansi in through- 
out the peninsula of Italy. Previous to this time Rome 
was only a local community ; after this period Rome became 
an empire which had necessarily to acquire a cosmopolitan 
culture. By the time of the opening of this transitional 
period, the elementary schools (schools of the literators, they 
were also called) were quite numerous and soon came to 
be known as schools of the gramniatists as well. This of 
itself indicates that a transition was going on. About the open- 
ing of this period Livius Andronicus (c. 284-204 b.c.) trans- 
lated the Odyssey into Latin. The book was soon introduced 
into these schools, giving them a more literary content than 
they had hitherto possessed. The translation of other Greek 
productions followed rapidly, and Latin literature took its 
rise at the same time. This growth of literary material soon 
produced a radical advance in education, namely, the intro- 
duction of the Greek grammar school distinct from the ludus 
in form, and superior to it. The exact time of introduction 
is difficult to determine. The Greek Andronicus, previously 
mentioned, was (in 267 b.c.) brought as a slave to Rome from 
his home in southern Italy, and after securing his freedom 
is said to have become a teacher of the Greek and Latin 
languages. Ennius (239-169), another Greek author and 
translator, is said to have engaged in similar work. Plutacch 
mentions Spurius Carvilius as the first to open a school at 
Rome (260 B.C.). Undoubtedly Plutarch means a grammar 
school, for the schools of the literators were frequent before 
this time. It is probable that none of these did more than 
give some knowledge of Greek literature through transla- 
tions, and some slight knowledge of the language to a chosen 
few. Consequently they cannot be said to have established 
schools. Suetonius mentions Crates of Mallos, a Greek 
ambassador to Rome, who met with an accident through 
falling into an open sewer and was thus detained at Rome 
(157 B.C.) as the first Greek teacher there. Suetonius opens 



The Ro7nans 195 

his Lives of Eminent Gra7ninariajis (written about 121 a.d.) 
as follows : " The science of grammar was in ancient times 
far from being in vogue in Rome ; indeed it was of little use 
in a rude state of society, when the people were engaged in 
constant war and had not much time to bestow upon the cul- 
tivation of the liberal arts. At the outset, its pretensions 
were very slender, for the earliest men of learning, who were 
both poets and orators, may be considered as half Greek." 
He then goes on to mention Livius and Ennius, as the first of 
these, and Crates as the first teacher of grammar. Ennius 
came to Rome in 204 B.C.; Crates in 157 B.C. However 
doubtful the origin may be, it is certain that by the» close 
of this period, at the date given by Suetonius as that of 
the first grammatical teacher, schools of this kind, taught 
by a grammaticjis or litcratns as distinguished from the 
grammatist or literator of the ludus, were frequent; for 
in 161 B.C. the Senate decreed that "It shall be lawful for 
M. Pomponius, the praetor, to take such measures, and make 
such provisions as the good of the Republic and the duties 
of his oflfice require, that no philosophers or rhetoricians be 
suffered at Rome." 

This edict refers to another type of teachers higher than 
and developing from the grammar teachers. According to 
Suetonius (b. 79 a.d.), who gives us this information, gram- 
marians came in time to teach rhetoric, and it was a frequent 
occurrence, even within the memory of his own father, that 
"some of the pupils of the grammarians passed directly 
from the schools to the courts." But long before the time 
of Suetonius, even before the close of the period we are now 
considering, the Greek conquest of Roman education was 
insured by the introduction of the schools of rhetors to 
continue the work of the grammarians. That the reception 
of these innovations was not a hearty one and that their 
influence was not general until the imperial period, is evi- 
denced by the fact that the instances of the few notable men 



196 History of Education 

who underwent a rhetorical training and profited practically 
by it, such as Cicero, Pompey, Caesar, Mark Antony, and 
even Augustus, are cited by Suetonius as unusual. He states 
that by slow degrees, rhetoric made itself manifest as a use- 
ful and honorable study, and that many persons devoted 
themselves to it, both as a means of defense of personal 
rights and as a means of acquiring reputation. The custom 
of sending the youth to Greece to receive this rhetorical train- 
ing, as in the case of Cicero, became established during this 
period. The introduction of the Latin rhetoric school not 
only supplemented the work of the Greek rhetorical schools, 
but gave a much wider scope to this formal or rhetorical edu- 
cation, since it affected a much larger portion of the popula- 
tion. ? In 92 B.C. the censors issued the following decree: — 

" It is reported to us that certain persons have instituted 
a new kind of discipline ; that our youth resort to their 
schools ; that they have assumed the title of Latin Rheto- 
ricians ; and that young men waste their time there for whole 
days together. Our ancestors have ordained what instruction 
it is fitting their children should receive, and what schools 
they should attend. These novelties, contrary to the customs 
and instructions of our ancestors, we neither approve, nor do 
they appear to us good. Wherefore it appears to be our 
duty that we should notify our judgment both to those who 
keep such schools, and those who are in the practice of 
frequenting them, that they meet our disapprobation." 

Both the similarity of the movement and of the attitude of 
the conservative elements in society to that of the transitional 
period in Greece is indicated by this edict. Yet it is evident 
that throughout this period the old Roman ideals and prac- 
tices in education prevailed and that the process centered in 
the home and not in the school. Aside from the litdiis, now 
all but universal but always private in character and often 
kept by a slave, the schools were an innovation and influ- 
enced only a small element composed of the leading families. 



The Romans 197 

The account which the Emperor Marcus Aurelius gives of 
his own education, as late as the second Christian century, 
suggests how extensively the old customs and ideas persisted 
even so late in the imperial period.^ 

Third or Imperial Period : The Hellenized Roman Educa- 
tion. — During this period, including about one century B.C. 
and two centuries a.d., the Romans attempted to introduce 
the new wine of Greek culture and intellectual activity and 
individualism into the old bottles of Roman institutional life. 
Never before, perhaps never at any time, has one people 
attempted to appropriate so thoroughly the intellectual life of 
another. The native vigor of the Roman character made it 
possible to do this without a complete surrender of their own 
characteristics and consequently rendered some modification 
of the Greek intellectual and educational characteristics 
necessary. The Romans never acquired the intellectuality, 
versatility or the originality of the Greeks ; at most, they 
succeeded in mastering the external ; at best, they perfected 
the form of literature ; at worst, in the later centuries of \) 
the empire, in' intellectual life and literature their education 
became one of pure form possessing little content or real 
value. 

The general means by which the Romans appropriated the 
Greek culture was by an adoption of their educational insti- 
tutions, now perfected into a system such as the Greeks 
never developed. 

The School of the Literator (or Ludimagistei^ during this 
period was somewhat more fully developed, though the details 
of its work are not fully known. Even at this time this ele- 
mentary school never attempted to give more than the merest 
rudiments of the arts of reading, writing, and calculation. 
Since reading was taken up in the grammatical school as a fine 
art, it is probable that, when the boy had mastered the art of 
reading ordinary prose, he was immediately transferred to 

1 Source Book, pp. 377-385. 



198 History of Education 

the higher school. By the time of Cicero, the Laws of the 
Twelve Tables disappeared from these schools, and their 
/place was taken by portions of the Latinized Odyssey or 
^\ by versified moral maxims. Though there are frequent 
exceptions, as in the case of Horace (p. 186), whose descrip- 
tion of school life is pertinent in this connection, the Greek 
pedagogue had generally replaced the father in the direct over- 
sight of the child. More attention was given at Rome to 
the selection of the pedagogue than in Greece. That they 
were not all ignorant is evidenced by the case of Palse- 
■ mon, author of one of the earliest scientific treatises on 
Latin grammar, who first distinguished the four declensions, 
who was the instructor of Ouintilian, and was himself one 
of the most famous Romans of his day. Yet he acquired 
the rudiments of literature as he attended his master's boy 
in the school as a pedagogue. 

Such schools were very common. The room was in a 
private house or in a shed or booth, or even in the open air. 
This phase of education, being non-Grecian, never received 
any general attention, nor such teachers — often mere slaves 
— any public esteem. 

TJie School of the Grammatiats now became a definitely 
formulated educational institution with an elaborate method, a 
fixed curriculum, and receiving public support. Such schools 
were of two types ; the one for the teaching of the Greek lan- 
guage, the other for the Latin language. Quintilian recom- 
mends the attendance at the Greek schools and the learning 
of the Greek language first. The Latin Grammar Schools at 
least were to be found in every city in the empire and re- 
mained as one of the most persistent institutions of the old 
pagan civiHzation until the overthrow of Roman culture by 
the barbarians. The major part of the work of these schools 
was, as the name indicates, the study of grammar. But 
grammar included more than the term signifies with us, for it 
related to the study both of the linguistic elements and of the 



The Romans 



199 



literary products of a language. They were essentially liter- 
ary schools: a master was called a literatus as well as a 
grammaticiis. And Hterature might be, certainly was in the 
conception of Quintihan, a broader conception than with us, 
for it included the work of the historians and of the scientific 
writers as well as of the poets. Varro (born 116 b.c), the 
learned Roman of the period of Cicero, wrote on all the seven 




A Roman School. From a Mural Decoration at Pompeil 



liberal arts, i.e. grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, arithmetic, geom- 
etry, music, astronomy, and on medicine and architecture 
besides. For the Romans, the world of learning had become 
quite identical in outline with that of the Greeks. It is certain 
that to some extent mathematics, music, and rudimentary 
dialectics were introduced into the grammar schools. The fact 
that these schools trespassed upon the grounds of the rhetor- 
ical schools has previously been noted. This combination of 
function continued, especially in smaller communities, late 
into imperial times. In all of the studies mentioned the 



•200 History of Education 

practical character of Roman life was never lost sight of ; 
their use never became identical with that in the Greek 
schools. Gymnastic and dancing were never introduced; the 
former was taught only in connection with military training, 
and the latter, if ever, in the home. To the legal tendency, 
the systematizing character, and the practical bent of the 
Roman mind, the study of grammar recommended itself, and 
it is in this subject that the educational activities of these 
school's are seen to the best advantage. The elements of 
Latin grammar were formulated early in the imperial period^ 
though the particular form given to the subject in later ages 
was the immediate work of Donatus (fourth century) and 
Priscian (fifth century). % 

Quintilian has furnished a general account of the work of 
these schools at their best. The master read with the pupils 
a wide selection of poets and historians, of which the Latin- 
ized Homer, Vergil, and Horace were the standards. Com- 
ment was made upon both substance and literary form, and 
V especial attention was given to oral reading, as preliminary 
to oratorical training. This was followed by elaborate ex- 
ercises in paragraphing, composition, and verse writing. A 
much used form of exercise was the assignment of a theme 
in the form of a quotation or maxim from some v>^riter, to be 
taken as the basis of an elaborate thesis or composition. 
This then was declaimed. According to Professor Jullien 
such theses followed this outline : {a) a panegyric upon the 
author, ib) the expansion of the thought, (6) the explanation 
and defense of the principle underlying the thought, {d^ a 
comparison of the thought with similar ideas of other authors, 
i^e) confirmatory quotations or incidents, (/) practical ex- 
hortation. Through the training in declamation afforded by 
these exercises the work of the grammatical school merged 
into that of the rhetorical school. But the main purpose of 
the former was different from that of the latter : in the gram- 
matical school the object was to give a mastery of the ian- 



The Romans 201 

guage, a correctness of expression in reading, in writing, and 
in speaking,'and to do this through a famiharity with the best 
Greek and Latin authors. Thus the Hterary education 
developed by the Greeks as the highest form of the hberal 
education was further developed along the definite line of 
a practical education for the life of affairs. 

TJie School of the Rhetor was the culmination of this 
practical literary education. Similar to the schools of the 
sophists, or rather, of the later rhetoricians of Greece, these 
schools furnished a direct preparation for the life of pubhc 
affairs at Rome, and consequently were patronized only by 
those who expected to devote their lives to a public career,,. 
During the later imperial ^period such a life became the 
distinctive characteristic of the members of the senatorial 
class, as that class was enlarged to include great numbers 
who had no other qualification save the favor of the emperor 
or some high official or the possession of wealth which would 
enable them to secure exemption from the obligations of 
ordinary citizenship. Hence, although all inspiration that 
might come to oratory from love of freedom was gone, this 
rhetorical education developed and expanded during these 
imperial centuries. 

Oratory was of greater and of more lasting importance 
at Rome than among the Greeks. Whereas the Greeks 
found an outlet for their higher intellectual interests in the 
philosophical schools and in the new religions, the Romans 
found in oratory the practical application of every aspect of 
higher learning that appealed to them. As Cicero explains 
in his de Oratore, the orator must have the philosopher's 
knowledge both of things and of human nature, but he must \/ 
also have the power to make such knowledge of practical ^ 
value in influencing his fellows through speech. To the 
Roman, then, this power of the orator represented in 
general the various ways in which an educated man in 
modern times can make his knowledge effective in the 



202 History of Education 

service of his fellow-men. It is not that this conception 
of education is narrow, but rather that the social organiza- 
tion of the times gave but few facilities for bringing intellect 
to bear upon practical affairs. The great warriors of the 
times were also great orators ; they were often great leaders 
because great orators. The orator was greater than the 
philosopher, because the orator included the philosopher. 
The functions performed in modern society, by the pulpit, 
the press, the rostrum, the bar, the legislative debate, even 
by the university, were in those times all performed by the 
orator. Hence at its best the ideal was a great one. It is 
only when we come to consider its ordinary reahzation that 
it appears formal, artificial, and restricted. 

The rhetorical training of the youth began at about the 
fifteenth year of age, the time the boy laid aside the toga 
prcstexta and assumed the dress of manhood. Then if des- 
tined for a public career he entered the rhetorical school to 
supplement the thorough linguistic training he had received 
in the grammar schools. The length of time spent on this 
stage of education would depend upon his interests, his 
abilities, and the schools he attended. 

The routine of the school consisted for the most part in 
declamation and debate. The stock themes for debate find 
frequent mention, especially in the writings of the satirists. 
Among such themes were these : " Was Hannibal justified 
in his delay before the walls of Rome .'' " " Was a slave 
about whose neck a master had hung the leather or golden 
token (the bulla, worn only by the free Roman youth), in 
order to smuggle him past th^- boundary, freed when he 
reached Roman soil wearing this insignia of' f^i^eedom } " " If 
a stranger buys a prospective drau^t«,of .^fishes and the 
fisherman draws up a casket of jewels, does the stranger 
own the jewels .'' " These and similar problems relating 
to fine distinctions in Roman law or in moral principle were 
the whetstones of their rhetorical wits. 



The Romans 203 

At its best, however, the rhetorical school included much 
more than this exercise in debate. According to Quintilian, 
the grammar school should thoroughly acquaint the boy , / 
with all literature; and the rhetorical school, in a similar'' 
manner, should give him a knowledge of music, of arith- 
metic, of geometry, of astronomy, and of philosophy. He 
rejects the objection that so many studies cannot be followed 
with profit, and holds that the human mind can attend to 
many things at once and that the orator, above all others, 
must possess this power. Quintilian enumerates the qualifi- 
cations of the orator as follows : a knowledge of things 
(gained through a mastery of literature) ; a good vocabulary 
and an ability to make careful choice of words ; a knowledge 
of human emotions and the power of arousing them ; a 
gracefulness and urbanity of manners ; a knowledge of his- 
tory and of law ; a good delivery ; a good memory. Beyond 
this he holds, also, that no one can be a good orator unless 
he is first a good man. This is the ideal, sketched by the 
most successful teacher and the ablest expositor of this con- 
ception of education ; but as with most educational ideals, 
the extant fragmentary knowledge of the actual status of 
these schools forces the conclusion that it was far removed 
from the reality. 

LibTaries mid Unwersities. — In a most literal sense the 
higher education of Rome was an imitation of Greece. Its 
earlier libraries were taken as spoils from the Greeks, just as 
the earliest of its higher teachers were slaves or refugees 
from Greece as a result of the Roman conquest. In 167 
B.C. the conqueror Paulus ^milius brought over the first of 
these libraries ; Sulla and later conquerors brought others. 
Augustus founded two public libraries. With the golden 
age of Latin literature, books were multiplied, many libraries 
were founded, and all the appurtenances of an age of cul- 
ture abounded. With the library founded by Vespasian 
(69-79 A.D.) in the Temple of Peace, erected after the fire 



204 History of Education 

of Nero, the university of Rome had its origin, Undei 
Hadrian (i 17-138 a.d.) and the later emperors interested 
in Hterature and education, this was developed into a defi- 
nite institution termed the Athenaeum, though it resembled 
more the university at Alexandria. Following the influence 
of this institution and the. practical genius of the Romans, the 
university gave more attention to law and medicine than to 
philosophy. The liberal arts, especially grammar and rheto- 
ric, were fully represented both in the Latin and in the 
Greek languages. Later, teachers of architecture, mathe- 
matics, and mechanics were appointed by the emperors, — ■ 
at least by Alexander Severus. These lines of instruction 
represented the entire work of the university ; in them all 
there was nothing in the way of investigation or of creative 
speculation. All instruction consisted ' . formal discipline 
such as was given in the lower schools or in the mere exposi- 
tion of the subject as organized by the Greeks. 

While the grammar and rhetorical schools were distributed 
over the provinces, the same cannot be said of the universi- 
ties. Aside from the Greek centers of culture, all of which 
were in the East except Massilia (the modern Marseilles), there 
were no universities under the Roman regime. The estab- 
lishment of such libraries in provincial towns was at least an 
occasional occurrence. In several of the epistles {e.g. Bk. i, 
Ep. 8) of Pliny the Younger, the establishment of such libra- 
ries is described with a provision of a pecuharly modern flavor, 
— that the gift is to be made if the locality will grant an 
annual support for the maintenance of scholarships or for 
the use and care of the library. 

Support of Schools by the Empire. — While during imperial 
times the number of schools increased to such an extent that 
scarcely a provincial town was without its grammar school, 
yet it can hardly be said that a system of schools existed : 
there was no governmental oversight of these schools ; there 
was no compulsion in their establishment ; there was no 



The Romans 205 

uniformity in their character. But from the fact that the 
government, both imperial and municipal, came to the sup- 
port of these schools, many of them lost their private char- 
acter and in that sense may be said to have constituted a 
system. 

The custom described by Suetonius as introduced by 
Vespasian, of the payment of salaries of grammarians and , 
rhetoricians from the imperial treasury, had developed the 
University of Rome. Hadrian and some of the later 
emperors extended their benefactions. But it was Anto- 
ninus Pius (138-16 1 A.D.) who was the first to systematize 
this encouragement of education. He extended to gram- J^ 
marians, rhetoricians, philosophers many of the privileges of 
the senatorial class and exempted them from many of the 
burdensome obliga'jons of the curiales in regard to the pay- 
ment of municipal taxes, the support of the soldiery, the 
obligation of military service, etc. As these measures 
offered but one more opportunity to escape from the op- 
pressed ranks of Roman citizenship, so many attempted to 
avail themselves of these privileges that restrictions were 
6oon imposed. By these only a few were allowed such 
privileges. The number varied from five grammarians and 
sophists or rhetors in the provincial capital to three of 
each in the smaller cities. Under Constantine and later 
emperors these privileges became the basis of the special 
privileges conferred upon the Christian clergy. Constan- 
tine, in edicts of 321, 326, 333, reaffirmed all the previous 
enactments regarding teachers and extended their privileges. 
Exempted from nearly all the burdens of both imperial and 
municipal character, from all the obligations of the curiales, 
they were yet permitted to accept the curial magistracies and ;;: 
the highest honors. They and their families were even made 
sacred in their persons, and all outrages or offenses against 
them were most severely punished. The emperor Gratian took 
one step further and, in the case of many communities, 



2o6 History of Education 

though it never became universal, duplicated the amount 
contributed from the municipal treasuries for the support 
of schools. For the most part, however, the support of 
schools remained a charge upon the municipalities. The 
same emperor in 376 established a fixed schedule for teachers 
throughout the empire ; rhetors in large towns were to receive 
twenty-four annonce} and grammarians half that sum. While 
the professional chairs in these schools were filled for the 
most part through election by the municipal government — 
though some were appointed direct by the emperors — the 
Emperor Julian asserted the right to pass upon all appoint- 
ments and delegated officers to perform this service for him. 
The object of this law, coming as it did from the apostate 
emperor, was to eliminate Christian teachers from these 
schools. In 425 the nearest approach to an imperial system 
was made by the emperors Theodosius and Valentinian, who 
made the government the sole authority in the establishment 
of schools and declared any attempt to found a school by a 
private party to be a penal offense. 

Educational Writers during the Imperial Period. — Having 
no thought of the connection between school education and 
the general welfare of the state, recognizing no connection be- 
tween its fundamental principles and problems and those of 
the science of ethics, and seeing no intimate connection 
between its functions and the general morality of social life, 
the educational writings of the Romans possess none of that 
permanent value found in those of the Greeks. For the 
most part our information concerning the education of the 
Romans is drawn from brief references scattered throughout 
the literature, beginning with Plautus, and including among 
those of the first century and a quarter of the Christian era, 
Horace, Martial, Juvenal, Seneca, Suetonius, Tacitus, Pliny, 
and Marcus Aurelius. 

Seneca is the one writer whose point of view would be 

1 Annona, the yearly allowance of a common soldier. 



The Romans 207 

likely to approximate most nearly that of the Greeks. It is 
true that he considers education to be in close contact with 
life, but he has little to suggest except stray observations, 
full of truth and still often quoted, but offering no underlying 
principles of education. Among his famous maxims are 
these : "We should learn for life not for school; " " We best 
learn by teaching ; " " The result is gained sooner by ex- 
ample than by precept." 

Cicero in his de Oratore, Tacitus in his de Oratoribus, 
Ouintilian in his de Institutione Oratoria, all discuss the 
rhetorical education and the orator as the ideal of the edu- 
cated man. All agree in considering the orator as the 
educated man who puts his intelligence and his learning to 
practical use ; all agree that the orator as a type is higher 
than the philosopher because inclusive of him ; all agree that 
the orator should have a knowledge of the preliminary sciences 
— of practically the entire realm of knowledge ; all agree 
that the orator should be primarily the good man. 

Quintilian's Institutes of Oratoiy is the only practical 
exposition of the entire field of educatk)n^_giye_^ 
Roman, and the first scientific statement of the problems of 
education, in the narrower use of the word. Besides treating 
of the necessary preliminary studies, the qualifications of the 
orator, and the methods of grammatical and rhetorical study, 
as previously indicated, it deals also with a great number of 
jmactiaal^educational problems. In a long argument Quin- 
tilian shows the superiority of public school education over 
private tutorial education ; he condemns the use of physical 
force and emphasizes the necessity of making studies attract- 
ive ; he points out the proper attitude of the teacher to the 
pupil ; he emphasizes the fact that different natures demand 
different treatment and urges the study of the dispositions of 
the pupils by the teachers ; and he indicates the importance 
of the selection of teachers and the qualifications they should 
possess. The greater part of his work, consisting as now 



2o8 History of Education 

published of two very substantial volumes, is devoted to an 
exposition of niethod, — from the learning of the alphabet to 
the study of philosophy, — and an analysis of the content of 
literature. Though this contains the methods of the best 
Roman schools and was considered the standard text in the 
practical guidance of the teacher throughout the subsequent 
centuries of the Roman culture and in the centuries of the 
later Renaissance, only this enumeration of the general topics 
discussed can be undertaken here.^ 

Quintilian was not only the most prominent writer on 
education but the most successful of Roman teachers. He 
was among the rhetors first subsidized by Vespasian and was 
given the highest marks of esteem by his contemporaries. 
Though he acquired great wealth through his teaching, he 
did not claim that he possessed great originality but rather 
that in his practices, as later in his writings, he summed up 
the best results of the work of his predecessors. For this 
\) reason his treatise deserves attention as a summary of actual 
conditions ; yet of conditions at their best. 

Fourth Period. Decline of Roman Education, — There can 
be no definite dates fixed for the delimitation of this period. 
Tacitus, writing in 79 a.d., complained in most bitter terms of 
the decadence of education. Yet this was the very period 
when Quintilian was teaching and when the emperors were 
beginning their policy of fostering education. It is probable 
that the greater formality and artificiahty of the education of 
this time, which from one point of view was a perfecting pro- 
cess, was to Tacitus a decline. The substitution of this training 
in the rhetorical "circus," as he termed it, for the old training 
in broad citizenship was undoubtedly a decline ; but in respect 
to literary education he probably wrote in the period of its great- 
est excellence. The decadence in literary quality and in the 

1 For selections of those portions that relate to education in the school, see 
Monroe's Source Book of the History of Education for the Greek and Ro?nan 
Period, Pt. II, Ch. VII. 



.*/■ 



The Romans 209 

intrinsic merit of this grammatical and rhetorical training did 
not come until the later part of the third or the early part of 
the fourth century. Even then this decay was not marked by 
any especial peculiarities or set off by any particular events. 
The educational conditions formed simply a part of that 
decadence of Roman society that constituted the essential fea- 
ture of the later centuries of the empire. A brief statement 
of some of its characteristics as they affected education is here 
desirable. 

The Decay of Roma^i Society. — Though the Emperor Cara- 
calla in 212 had conferred Roman citizenship upon all free 
citizens of the empire, this distinction — ceasing to be an 
honor highly prized — had now become a badge of servitude 
little better than slavery. Upon the curiales, or free citizens, 
fell all the burden of the support of the municipal government, 
with its maintenance of the army and much of the support of 
the imperial government. The legislation of the empire, 
formerly directed largely to the definition of the rights of 
the freeman and of the privileges of property, was now 
largely devoted to the prevention of the escape of the cu- 
rial from his inherited honor, — the freedom of the empire. 
Attempting to escape these insupportable obligations and 
oppressions, he sought rehef in the army, among the ranks 
of the barbarian hordes, among the ranks of the serfs upon 
the senatorial estates, in the monasteries of the Church — and 
from each he was sought out by the imperial officers. The 
greatest punishment that could be inflicted for this or any 
other offense was the degradation to his original position 
as a curial, — a free Roman citizen, — since when so enforced 
he had again to go through all the years of governmental 
servitude that might in the end afford his escape into the 
privileged classes. To many the profession of teaching 
offered a means of escape — as to the great Augustine him- 
self ; to others the clerical office of the Christian Church 
offered a similar escape, for at this time the great privileges 



2IO History of Education 

of the Church originated. Many found escape only in com- 
plete renunciation of all these goods or in suicide. Thus low 
had sunk that privilege which a few centuries earlier had been 
considered the greatest boon to be acquired by man. 

Whence had come this decline t It is not far to seek. A 
monarchy that had centralized into an absolute despotism with 
perfect machinery for carrying out its will and extracting the 
wealth of the people ; an official class corrupt beyond meas- 
ure and openly defiant of imperial authority; a judiciary 
open to bribery ; a horde of military officers that exacted 
both taxes and provender in kind for the support of a huge 
standing army, and whose will was law even with the 
emperors ; tax officials that not only oppressed but defrauded 
the curiales, so that often the assessments had to be paid twice 
or thrice over ; and, above all, an aristocracy, large in number, 
supremely selfish, extravagant, corrupt in all financial and 
economic dealings, and, so far as the Italian and African 
provinces were concerned, immoral beyond description and 
everywhere indifferent to the needs and the rights of the 
common people, — such were the causes of this decline. In a 
word, the decay of Rome was primarily political and economic. 
So flagrant were these abuses that the emperors frequently 
suspended the collection of supplies from entire districts, 
exempted whole provinces from taxation, or even in some 
instances suspended in a province the right of collection of 
legal private debts. Between these millstones of extortion 
and exemption the middle class was ground : the rural classes 
became less and less numerous, until a large portion of the 
Italian lands was depopulated ; those remaining had to bear 
the increased burden and hence became poorer and poorer. 

On the other hand, the senatorial class, who now possessed no 
senatorial functions and of whom but a small portion ever saw 
the city of Rome, was augmented by great numbers that 
through bribery, through favoritism of imperial officers, 
through performance of the multitudinous obligations placed 



The Romans 211 

upon the curiales, through some official service or through 
inheritance, acquired this privilege. Having lost all of the 
old Roman patriotism, this class took little or no part in the 
work of the mercenary army and showed little interest in 
the wrongs and the sufferings of their less fortunate neigh- 
bors, but devoted their lives to ease and enjoyment, the pur- 
suits of the higher pleasures, including literature and the 
intellectual enjoyments, or to self-indulgence and debauchery. 
Such education as flourished was for the satisfaction or the 
adornment of this class of society alone. 

The moral condition of society needs hardly to be men- 
tioned ; it certainly cannot be adequately described. Immense 
wealth, easily and dishonestly gained, with few obligations ; -/^ 
great political power and privileges, with few duties ; no 
common standards of moral conduct, no respected religion, 
— these conditions state the situation. In place of the old 
Roman virtues, some centuries of self-indulgence and license 
in the imperial circles had been followed by a similar course 
of life on the part of the upper classes and in almost all por- 
tions of the empire. The numerous Eastern religions had 
added a religious sanction to every tendency to vice and even 
to indulgence in the most depraved tastes of human nature. 
Such religious celebrations as in their earlier form had at 
least the merit of naturalness, simplicity, and aesthetic form, 
degenerated into debauchery. As is to be noticed later, even 
the Christian Church tended to decline to the common stand- 
ard rather than attempted to elevate mankind. As in the 
case of Grecian culture and Roman power, so here it seemed 
that Roman lust was to take captive its pure conqueror, the 
Christian Church, 

The empire which the barbarians crushed was but a shell. 
Its downfall does not need to be explained as due to the 
undermining of patriotism and of devotion to the empire by 
the Christian religion. Save in a few notable and worthy 
leaders the general indifference was more marked with the 



212 History of Edttcation 

pagan aristocracy than with the leaders of the Christian 
Church. The task remains to indicate briefly the education 
of this decadent society. 

TJie Education of the last Centuries of the Empire. — Subse- 
quent to the opening of the fourth Christian century, the 
most important contributions to Roman literature were made 
by representatives of the Christian Church rather than by 
representatives of the old pagan culture ; hence an important 
phase of the education of this period is treated of in the 
chapter following. The fact that much of the intellectual 
strength and all new interest and inspiration were drawn into 
the Christian Church explains to a large extent the character 
of education in these later centuries of the empire. In this 
period also the provinces held a more prominent position than 
did Rome itself. In fact after the removal of the capital from 
Rome by Diocletian (285-305) Rome ceased to hold the 
importance it had previously had, until the growth of the 
Christian Church a few centuries later again made it the cen- 
ter of power. The education we have to consider in this 
section, then, is that of the old pagan society in its declining 
years. 

Structurally this education has been described under pre- 
vious periods, for grammatical and rhetorical schools spread 
all over the empire. These schools flourished, especially in 
Gaul, but also in Spain and the African provinces. At Mar- 
seilles, said at that time to surpass Athens, at Autun, at 
Treves, now made the abode of emperors, at Lyons, Aries, 
Auvergne, Vienna, Narbonne, and, above all, at Bordeaux, 
grew up very notable schools which, even in the centuries of 
darkness which followed the destruction of Roman society, 
refused to give up their traditions of classical culture. Unti? 
this destruction by the barbarians actually took place, in the 
sixth and seventh centuries, there was no decline in the 
institutional side of this education. 

The limitation which most characterizes the decline is the 



The Romans " 213 

fact that this education is for the upper class only. This 
education is now to be judged not as the practical training 
of a whole people, but as an adornment to a hollow, super- 
ficial, usually corrupt society ; not as the expression of the 
highest aims in life, but as a dilettante interest, more often 
still, as an affectation ; not as a stage of development possible 
for an entire people, or at least for individuals of any rank, 
but as an attainment or even badge of distinction of a favored 
class. In this condition it continues to flourish for several 
centuries. As the old political power and opportunity for 
political activity disappeared, as the municipal government 
became mere machinery for collecting taxes, as the army 
became filled with barbarians, the upper class, - — the Roman 
nobility, — now more numerous than ever, turned to the one 
remaining feature of early irnperial Rome, — its culture. 

It has been noted that all originality departed from 
Roman literature with the "Silver Age." After Tacitus 
(55-120 A.D.), there were no writers of first rank; after Sue- 
tonius (75-160 A.D.), there were few of second rank. But 
with the decline in thought content, more and more impor- 
tance was attached to form. A perfection of artificial form 
foreign in spirit to the earlier " Golden Age " was striven for 
and attained. Form became everything. Virgil and Horace 
yet ruled as masters — not as masters of poetic thought and 
taste, but rather as masters of grammatical construction, of 
choice of words, of style. Esteemed along with this perfec- 
tion of form there was a dilettant erudition, which com- 
mended the study of the poets as the sources of apt phrase 
and of the philosophers as a treasury of obscure allusion. 
The possession of this debased culture now became the one 
remaining distinction of the senatorial class, prized as were 
their wealth and their birthrights. Its possession by any 
person was a mark of social superiority and the most certain 
means of advancement in the imperial service or in the pro- 
vincial courts. The character of this social life is reflected 



214 History of Education 

in the literature and the learning of the times. Servility and 
flattery reigned in the places of the great ; they in turn pros- 
trated themselves in Oriental style before the emperors, who 
continued in Christian times to employ the titles of deity, 
though no longer daring to demand the worship implied. 
So, too, there prevailed in literature abject imitation, subjec- 
tion of all thought to mere propriety of form, absence of all 
originality either of thought or style. An age in which 
schools flourished as never before in earlier periods of Roman 
education, in which the writer and the teacher were esteemed 
and rewarded as never before, an age with all the parapher- 
nalia of culture, it was yet one in which education did not 
interest or benefit the people or society at large, — one whose 
show of erudition and mastery of pedantic literary form did 
but make it an object of wonder or of ridicule to subsequent 
ages. 

These centuries were not without many minor writers of 
merit, and able systematizers, especially grammarians. This 
is especially true of the fourth century. Then Donatus (about 
400) in the West and Priscian (about 500) in the East per- 
fected the grammatical analysis of the language in text-books 
that were to remain the basis of linguistic study and hence 
of education until the sixteenth centurys Grammarians and 
rhetoricians had never been held so high in esteem. Rhetori- 
cians had followed the conquering Roman armies into Gaul, 
as do traders a modern conquest, and had gained a hold upon 
the Romanized Celtic civilization that rendered possible the 
survival of this culture in that province after it had disappeared 
elsewhere. With the recrudescence of paganism under the 
apostate Emperor Julian (361-363) — a revival in itself largely 
inspired in the schools — there occurred a revival of the 
classical culture and of schools that is spoken of by histo- 
rians as a distinct renaissance of learning. Because this 
centered largely in the revival of the influence of Platonism 
and of the school of Alexandria, it was largely Hellenic in 



The Romans 215 

character. As has been noted under the preceding topic, the 
Christian emperors continued their patronage of learning. 
The Emperor Gratian, who did so much for education, exalted 
his former tutor. Ausonius (about 310 to about 393), who 
had been a teacher for thirty years, to the prefecture of Gaul, 
and his son to the prefecture of Italy. After a long and dis- 
tinguished service Ausonius returned to the student life and 
through his example added materially to the esteem in which 
the teaching profession and the literary life was held in the 
fourth and fifth centuries. His pupil, Paulinus, also a gram- 
marian and poet, was made consul and governor of a prov- 
ince ; and another pupil, Symmachus, even more noted as a 
rhetorician and poet, was made consul and prefect at Rome. 
What the family of Ausonius did for this exaltation of 
learning was approximated in many more modest circles by 
rhetoricians, grammarians, and poets. 

Thus the pagan culture, though but the form without the 
essence, retained its hold upon the educated classes until the 
destruction of Roman society by the barbarians in the sixth 
century. While most of this senatorial class, including men 
like Ausonius, were nominally Christian, at heart and in their 
philosophy of life they were really pagan in the best Roman 
form of paganism. With alarm and disdain they witnessed 
the desertion of friends to the more extreme form of Chris- 
tian views then advocated by the devotees of the monastic 
life. The monastic ideal was in truth the complete negation 
of the pagan view of life, as the nominal life in the Christian 
Church had ceased to be. 

One further characteristic of the educational activity of 
these centuries needs to be noted, — the work of the schools. 
One peculiar feature of these later revivals of classical learn- 
ing had been the growth of a class of wandering lecturers, 
similar to the early sophists of Greece. The sophists of this 
period, however, excelled merely in formal speech, not profess- 
ing to instruct so much as to entertain. Describing this, to us, 



2i6 History of Education 

almost incomprehensible laudation of a speaker whose abil- 
ity was only that of bombastic superficiality, Professor Dill 
remarks : — 

" If he was a man of reputation in his art, people rushed 
to hear him declaim, as they will do in our times to hear a 
great singer, or actor, or popular preacher. Provincial 
governors, on a progress through a district, would reheve the 
tedium of official duties by commanding a display of word- 
fence or declamation by such a master as Proaeresius, reward 
him with the most ecstatic applause and conduct him home 
in state after the performance. ... In the last years of the 
fourth century, at a time of great events and momentous 
changes, Symmachus, when writing to Ausonius, finds the 
only interesting subject at hand to be a rhetorical display 
which a rhetorician named Palladius had just given at a 
fashionable gathering ; and words almost fail to express the 
admiration of that ordinarily calm and dignified senator for 
the performance. It is singular that a man, who could him- 
self speak with great effect on a serious occasion in the 
senate, or before the Emperor, should be so carried away by 
an unreal exhibition of school rhetoric. But the fact remains 
that this power of using words for mere pleasurable effect, 
on the most trivial or the most extravagantly absurd themes, 
was for many ages in both west and east, esteemed the 
highest proof of talent and cultivation." 

Such being the ideal, it is not to be wondered that the 
work of the schools was of the most formal, artificial and, so 
far as any real social value is concerned, ineffectual char- 
acter.- The study of philosophy had disappeared altogether 
from the schools and found but few devotees among the 
cultured, and here, too, merely for a show of learning. Ex- 
cept in Rome, even law attracted but slight attention in these 
Western schools ; in the school at Bordeaux, the most promi- 
nent during these later centuries oif all these schools of the 
empire, only grammar and rhetoric were taught. Grammar, 
it is true, included literary appreciation and study of content 
as well as form ; and the most prominent grammarians, as 



The Romans 2 1 7 

evidenced by some of the more important works of the times, 
possessed a knowledge of all the preliminary sciences de- 
manded of the orator by Ouintilian. For the most part, 
however, this learning was mere antiquarianism and degener- 
ated as did the literature of the times into mere trifling. The 
study of Vergil so dominated in these schools, that here was 
laid the foundation of the practice of the Middle Ages of 
identifying all classical learning with the cult of Vergil. But 
it was rather Vergil analyzed and dissected, than Vergil 
appreciated and enjoyed. 

If this was the degenerate state of the study of grammar 
and literature, that of rhetoric was even worse. No longer 
connected with real life, in the school or out, no longer a 
public function in the courts, senate, or curial assemblies, it 
had degenerated into a mere display in the theater, in the 
school, or before the private audience. As an art it depended 
upon an abundant vocabulary, a glibness of tongue, and the 
mastery of the mannerisms of the stage. Like the older 
sophists these later rhetoricians boasted their ability to speak 
with equal effectiveness on either side of any proposition and 
aspired but to clothe the most common event in gorgeous 
verbiage, or to dress out a trivial or hackneyed thought in the 
greatest variety of ways. 

Such ideals of culture stopped all progress. If the Hellen- 
ized Roman education ever possessed any of the liberalizing 
tendencies that it did with the Greeks, it had long since lost 
all of them. The practical merits of Roman education had 
disappeared quite as completely. Down to the close of the 
sixth century these schools existed throughout the European 
provinces and gave to the early Church in that region a formal 
training in the culture of pagan society. This service was 
performed for provincial converts and even for the youth 
of the early Teutonic invaders, especially those of the Goths 
who remained permanently on the soil of Gaul. Such in- 
stances, however, were so infrequent as to be of little effect, 



2i8 History of Education 

and uhe schools, unable to stand the evils of indifference and 
barbarian hostility as well as of hollow formality, became 
extinct. 

Such being the character of the pagan culture in its 
senility, let us turn to a consideration of Christian culture in 
its infancy. 

REFERENCES 

Becker, Galltes, Scene III. (London, 1844.) 

Clark, 'J'ke Education of Children at Rome. (New York, 1896.) 

Davidson, Tlie Education of the Greek People, Ch. IX. 

Davidson, Aristotle and the Ancient Educational Ideal, Bk. IV, Ch. II. 

Dill, Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire, Bk. V, 

Ch. 1. (London, 1899.) 
Hobhouse. Ancient Education. 

Laurie, Historical Survey of Pre-Christian Education, pp. 301-41 1. 
Mahaffy, The Greek li'orld Under Roman Sway. (London, 1890.) 
Monroe, Source Book in tlie History of Education, Pt. II. 
Ouintilian, Institutes of Oratory, esp. Bk. I, Chs. I and II. 
Sandys, History of Classical Education from the Sixth Centtery B.C. to the 

end of the Middle Ages, Chs. X-XXIII inclusive. (Cambridge, 1903.) 
Thomas, Roman Life Under the Ccesars, Ch. IX. (New York, 1899.) 



TOPICAL QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY 

1. What contrasts are offered between the concrete virtues of the Roman 
ideal and those of the Greek, as indicated in their early literature? 

2. To what extent does Roman education indicate the value of biography 
in education? • 

3. To what extent does Roman education illustrate the function and the 
importance of the parent in education? 

4. What is the difference between the Roman and the Greek use of 
gymnastics in education? 

5. Was the conception of an orator, as expounded by Cicero, Tacitus, 
and Quintilian, a sufficiently broad educational ideal for society in the 
imperial period? 

6. What concrete details concerning the work of the rhetorical schools 
can be found in the writings of these same authors? 



The Romans 219 

7. To what extent did the adopted use of the Greek Hterary education 
afford to the Romans a Hberal education, after the Greek idea ? 

8. To what extent is the old Roman education described in the first 
chapter of the Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus ? 

9. To what extent do present practices and beliefs justify Quintilian's 
views concerning methods of teaching reading, methods of studying 
grammar and literature, and his conception of the nature and educational 
function of these two subjects? 



Chronological Survey of Medi-eval Education. 476-1300 a.d. 



Political 


Writers, 


Churchmen and 

Ecclesiastical 

Events 


Educational 


Educational 


Events 


Schoolmen, etc. 


Writings 


Events 


" Fall " of 


Boethius c. 480-524 


St. Benedict 480-543 


Benedict's 


Monte Cassino 


Rome . . . 476 


Cassiodorus 


Franks 


Rules 


founded . . 529 


Odoacer . . . 476 


c. 480-575 


converted . . 496 


Boethius, 


Cassiodorus founds 


Theodoric . . 493 


Gregory of 


Gregory I c. 540-604 


Consolations, 


monastery . 540 


Tothila . 541-542 


Tours c. 538-594 


Mohammed i. 572 


Translations 


Christian era first 


Justinian . . 527 


Isidore of 


Columban . 540-615 


of A ristotle. 


used for 


The empire 


Seville c. 570-636 


Hegira of 


Cassiodorus, 


dating . . . 526 


reunited . . 565 


Venerable 


Mohammed . 622 


histitjites 


St. Gall founded 614 


Arab conquest 


Bede . . 673-735 


Conference at 


of Sacred 


Reichenau f. . 724 


of Spain . . 714 


Alcuin . '. 735-804 


Whitby . . 664 


Literature 


Fulda founded . 744 


Karl Martel defeats 


Paulus 


Boniface converts 


Gregory of 


Alcuin called to 


Saracens . . 732 


Diaconus 725-797 


the Germans 


Tours, 


Frankland . 781 


Carolingian line 752 




. 721-754 


Chron. 


Karl's Capitularies 


End of Lombard 




Last council recog- 


Isidore, 


on ed. 787 et seq. 


kingdom . . 774 




nized by Eastern 


Etymologies 


Alcuin, Abbot of 


Charlemagne 




and Western 


Bede, Chron. 


Tours . 794-804 


772-814 




churches . . 787 
Leo HI . 795-817 


Alcuin, 
On Seven 
Liberal 




800 A.D. 






Arts, etc. 




Carolingian Empire 


Einhard . 770-840 


Conversion of 


Rabanus 


Division of 


founded . . 800 


Rabanus 


Saxons . . . 804 


Maurus, 


Monastic Schools 


Charles the 


Maurus . 776-856 


Separation of 


Education 


into interns and 


Bald . 840-877 


John Scotus 810 875 


Eastern and 


of the 


externs . . 817 


Treaty Verdun 843 


Walafred 


Western 


Clergy 


Hirschau 


Alfred . 871-901 


Strabo . 809-849 


churches . . 822 


Walafred 


founded . . 830 


Henry of 


Avicenna 980-1037 


Clugny founded 910 


Strabo, 


Oath of Strassburg, 


Saxony 919-936 


Anselin . 1033-1109 


First Crusade 1095 


Biography 


earliest form of 


Otho . . 936-973 


Roscellinus 


Sylvester II 


Anselm and 


German and 


Holy Roman Em- 


c. 1050-1121 


(Gerbert) 


Roscellinus 


French 


pire founded 962 




999-1003 


begin 


language . . 841 


Otho III . 996-1002 




Cistercians 


scholastic 


Salerno . fl. c. 1050 


Caliphate of 




founded . 1098 


controversy 


Anselm, Abbot of 


Cordova 929 1031 




Knights of St. John 




Canterbury 


Capetian line , 987 




founded . 1099 




1093 I 109 


Norman conq. 1066 


William of 








Canossa . . 1077 


Champeaux 








IIOO A D. 


d. 1121 








consular govern- 


Bernard . d. 1153 


Knights Templars 


Abelard, 


Irnerius at 


ment in Italian 


Abelard 1079-1142 


founded . 1119 


Sic-et Non, 


Bologna . 11 13 


cities . fl. 1 100 


Hugo St. Victor 


Second Crusade 


etc. 


Trans from Arabic 


Arnold of 


c. 1097-1142 


1147 


Hugo of 


under Raymond of 


Brescia 1100-1155 


Richard 


Murder of 


St. Victor, 


Toledo 1130-1150 


Frederick Bar- 


St. Victor d. iij^ 


a Becket . 1170 


On 


U. of Paris . c. 1160 


barossa 1152-1190 


John of Salis 


Innocent III 


Instruction 


Aristotle's Physics 


Henry II of 


bury . 1110-1180 


1198-1216 


John of 


proscribed at 


England 1154-84 


Peter of Blois 


Peter the Venerable 


Salisbury, 


Paris . . 1210 


Philip II of 


1 1 35- 1 204 


d. 1156 


Metalogicus 


Metaphysics 


France i 180-1223 


Albertus Magnus 


Albigensian 


Walter Map, 


proscribed . 1215 


Treaty of 


1193-1280 


Crusade . 1208 


Latin 


Frederick II sends 


Constance 11 83 


Walter Map 


Franciscans 


Students' 


trans of Aris. to 


Fall of 


c. 1140-1210 


founded . 12 10 


Songs 


Bol.and Paris 1220 


Constantinople 


Averroes 1126-1198 


Dominicans 


Alexander 


Niebelungenlied 


to Crusaders 1204 


Alex. Hales J. 1245 


founded . 1215 


de Ville- 


c. 1220 


Frederick II 


Grosseteste 


Crusade of 


dieu, 


Epic poetry in 


1208-1250 


1175-1253 


St. Louis . 1270 


Grajnmar 


Ger. and France 


Magna Charta 1215 


Bonaventura 


Christians 




c. 1200-1250 


End of Hohen- 


1221-1274 


expelled from 




Dominicans at 


staufen line 1254 


Th Aquinas 1221-74 


Palestine . 1291 




Paris . 1217 


Louis IX of 


Walter von der 


Boniface 1294-1303 




Franciscans at 


France 1226-70 


Vogelweide fl. 1230 






Paris . . 1230 


Latin Empire in 


Alexander de Ville- 






U. of Padua . 1222 


East falls . 1261 


dieu . . d. 1240 






U. of Naples . 1224 


Hapsburg line 


Vincent de Beauvais 






U. of Salamanca 1243 


begins . . 1273 


d. 1264 






U. Col. Oxford 1249 


Model 


Roger Bacon 






Peterhouse, 


Parliament 1295 


1214-1294 
Raymond Lull 






Cambridge 1284 
Aristotle again stud. 


1300 A.D. 


123S-1315 






at Paris . 1255 



CHAPTER V 
MIDDLE AGES: EDUCATION AS DISCIPLINE 

§ I, EARLY CHRISTIAN EDUCATION 

CHRISTIANITY IN CONTACT WITH THE WORLD OF 
THOUGHT. — In order to understand the attitude of the early- 
Church to education, and the conception of education that 
developed from these early conditions and prevailed through- 
out the Middle Ages, it is necessary to have in mind some of 
the characteristics of the thought life and of the concrete 
social activities of the pagan life surrounding the early Church. 
Into the life of Greek culture and intellectual activity of the 
cosmopolitan period, modified, supplemented, and extended 
as it had been through adoption by the Romans, and into the 
life of Roman activity at its height of power, though past its 
prime in vigor and positive virtues, Christianity was intro- 
duced in the first century, to spread with great rapidity, to 
modify this foreign world both in regard to thought and to 
conduct, and, on the other hand, to be itself profoundly modi- 
fied as well. 

The Greek mind had developed a versatility that probably 
has never been equaled, a power of dealing with abstract 
thought and an interest in philosophical questions that is as 
remote from the interests of society at large to-day as it was in 
ages preceding the time under consideration. Schools were 
very numerous and flourishing in both the East and the West ; 
culture had never been so disseminated, nor the intellectual 
life so fostered. In very many points indeed, it can be shown 



22 2 History of Editcation 

that Christianity was influenced and modified by this solvent 
of Greek thought. These changes are, however, of more 
interest in Church history ; here only a few points of contact 
can be indicated as of vital importance in the history of 
education. 

Christian vs. Greek Solution of the Problem of the Individ- 
iial ajid Society. — The highest reach of pagan thought, its solu- 
tion of the problem of the individual and society, was in the 
thought of Aristotle that found the perfection of the one and 
conserved the welfare of the many in well being and well doing 
(pp. 148-150). The solutions offered by Plato, Aristotle, and 
by the various schools of thought found their ideals in the 
intellectual nature of man and were necessarily aristocratic 
since possible only to the few. Opposed to this, Christianity 
offered its solution found in the mora l jiature of rnan which, 
since it is common to all alike, was universal in its applica- 
tion. It was in no ideal of immediate happiness or of any 
activity of the rational nature that Christianity discovered its 
solution of the world problem. It was in the idea of Christian 
charity or love, — that expression of personality which is most 
individual and most complete, and which at the same time 
from its very nature finds its expression in objects or person- 
alities external to itself. Thus in the moral nature, which 
pagan religion had so slightly affected and which Greek phi- 
losophy had but dimly apprehended, a new basis of life was 
found and a new solution of the fundamental educational as 
well as ethical problem was secured. However different in 
its solution, the problem stated and the general principle 
sought were so identified with that of the highest thought of 
the pagan schools that a community of interest was immedi- 
ately discovered, and a fusion of Greek philosophical thought 
and Christian teaching was attempted. The unknown god 
that the Apostle declared unto the Athenians was but a symbol 
of this declaration of the hitherto unknown truth for which 
the Greek thinkers for generations had been groping. 



Middle Ages 223 

Points of Conflict between Greek and Christian Thought. — 

Though there was this one point of contact of fundamental 
importance, there were divergencies too great to be bridged 
without compromises on both sides. The intellectual and 
aesthetic elements so essential to the Greek ideal, were wholly- 
wanting in the opinions of the early Christian teachers. This 
led to an indifference on the part of the Christians to those 
features and characteristics of the Greek and the Greco- 
Roman education and culture. Further strengthened by the 
fact that Christianity offered the greatest boon to classes 
wholly neglected in the economy of pagan society and Gre- 
cian culture, and by the additional fact that paganism found 
its strongest intrenchment for resistance against conquest 
by the new religion in its literature, its culture, and its 
schools, there grew up in time a general hostility between 
Hellenistic culture and Christianity that had not at first been 
evident. Especially when the old culture had degenerated 
into a mere form without the vivifying principle of the real 
search for truth that had characterized the early Greek phi- 
losophers or the later Stoics at Rome, Hellenism became 
identified with paganism. 

Influence of Greek Thought upon Christianity. — The extent 
to which Christianity was influenced in its thought life by 
Grecian intellectualism is evidenced by the growth of her- 
esies, — many of which were attempts to interpret Christian 
teachings in the light of the varying schools of Greek 
philosophy, — and in the formation of the orthodox Christian 
creed as well. Contrasting the Sermon on the Mount with 
the Nicene Creed (a.d. 325) one sees at a glance the differ- 
ence between Christianity in Semitic form, and Christianity 
when cast in Grecian mold. This influence of the Grecian 
thought world on early Christianity can be seen in various 
aspects. Contrast, for instance, the methods of teaching. 
In the Grecian schools the method was that of formal selec- 
tion of a theme or texts from the teaching of a philosophical 



2 24 History of Education 

school, of logical analysis, of careful choice of words, of dis- 
crimination in phrases and fine shades of meaning, and of 
formal delivery ; the method of the Hebrew synagogue was 
that of informal comment and exposition ; the method of 
instruction of the early Christian Church was that of prophe- 
sying or impromptu exposition and exhortation. In a similar 
manner the allegorical method of interpretation so long in 
vogue among the Greek philosophers in the explanation of 
their literature, whereby trivial, irrational, or immoral acts 
were given a moral or rational meaning, was adopted by the 
Jews, under the leadership of Philo, in the justification of the 
Old Testament to Greek thought. Finally this same method 
was adopted by the Christian teachers, and the Church sub- 
sequently imposed these interpretations upon coming genera- 
tions as a test of orthodoxy. 

Influence of Roman Thought. — The point of contact be- 
tween Christianity and the Roman thought world was found in 
its relation to the Stoic philosophy. Peculiarly appropriate 
to the Roman character, and prepared for by all of their 
early historic experience, the Stoic philosophy, as formulated 
by a few leading exponents among the Romans and held by 
a large and saving element among the better members of 
society, expressed the highest attainment in moral thought 
reached by the ancients. According to this philosophy, virtue 
in itself was made the highest pleasure attainable. Conscience 
was exalted into the rule of life ; good deeds, charity, and 
sympathy for the less fortunate were commanded not on the 
score of ostentation or for the approval of man, but because 
such actions were a duty. Duty, in its legal, institutional, 
and parental form had always been exalted by the Romans 
as the highest expression of their moral life ; they now found 
in the philosophical formulation of this ethical truth the 
highest expression of their cosmopolitan life and of their world 
empire. This represents the perfection of pagan philosophy 
in its ethical bearing. Conscience was deified into the sole 



Middle Ages 225 

arbiter of life ; for in the Stoic philosophy of the Romans, 
though it was otherwise with earlier teachings of the Grecian 
Stoics, there is no firm behef in a life after death, and little 
attempt to connect the duties of this life with any rewards 
and punishments in the hereafter. Says one of these teachers: 
" The wise man will not sin, though both gods and men should 
overlook the deed, for it is not through the fear of punish- 
ment or of shame that he abstains from sin. It is from the 
desire and obligation of what is just and good." 

It is a striking fact that as it nears the period of the 
ascendency of Christianity, pagan philosophy, as illustrated 
by Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, directs its atten- 
tion more and more to the attempt to influence the conduct 
of men through ethical teachings, in recognition of the fact 
that this was the supreme need of the time. In this, again, 
Christianity had one great feature in common with the 
thought life of the times. Yet the differences here were very 
great. Both aimed to regulate the life of society, or at least 
the daily conduct of the individual, so as to secure the happi- 
ness, immediate or ultimate, of the individual and the secur- 
ity and stability of society. But while it aimed at the 
regeneration of society, philosophy could affect only a few. 
Attached, as they were, to the great families of Rome in the 
capacity of moral advisers, the minor Stoics would seem to 
be in a position to exercise an influence, great though limited 
to a class. Their position, however, was little above that of 
a menial one ; for the patrohage extended to them was quite 
as much an ostentatious display of power as was that shown 
to the court scholar during the Renaissance, while the ease 
and influence attaching to the position called forth a great 
number of impostors, greedy of wealth and given over to the 
gratification of every whim and passion. 

Limitations of Stoicism and Other Pagan Philosophies. — 
The reason for the slight extent of the influence of Stoicism 
compared with that of Christianity is to be seen on the very 



226 History of Education 

surface. Both exalted virtue ; but while virtue to the Stoic 
was to be obtained only through the development of reason, 
Christianity would obtain the same result through the emo- 
tional nature. The virtue of the Stoics could be obtained 
only by the few in whom the intellect was developed and the 
rational nature controlled ; Christianity rendered the attain- 
ment to virtue a possibility for all. It appealed to emotions 
that were universal ; to that which was noble, to the affection 
for an ideal human character that in itself is an expression 
of the divine, to sympathy for fellow-men, to fear of eternal 
retribution, and to the entire gamut of human feelings. 

This limitation of Stoicism was a limitation of all ancient 
philosophy. The quotation given on page 152 shows that 
even Aristotle clearly recognized this fact in his own philoso- 
phy. The appeal of Stoicism could be made only to minds 
already noble. It affected but a limited few in society, and 
those of the best. However nearly its ethical teachings ap- 
proximated Christianity, there was no similarity in the extent 
of its influence, and hence in its educational character. The 
ancient philosophy did very little to improve mankind, to 
regenerate the society of the times. Unless, as in the im- 
possible scheme of Plato, philosophers should be kings, it 
could do nothing to check vice among men and evil in 
society. 

If philosophy did little to check vice and gave an ethical 
creed to but the intellectual few, the religion of pagan society 
did far less to effect any moral improvement in life. As a 
matter of fact, the religions of the ancients had little influ- 
ence on morality. The grosser forms of Asiatic religions 
were but the cloaking of every human instinct and passion, 
even the grossest, under the guise of worship. That of the 
Greeks was a refinement upon these through its clothing 
of aesthetic form and later through its content of philo- 
sophical truth. But the polytheism of the Greeks had long 
ceased to have any influence on the lives of thinking men ; 



Middle Ages 227 

among the multitude it was little less than a subject for 
jeering. The ethical teachings of the Greeks were embodied 
in the writings of the dramatists and the philosophers. 
Of the latter, Plato most conspicuously took a position of 
open hostility to the Homeric and other early poetry em- 
bodying their mythology. The later philosophers inclined, 
on the one hand with the Epicureans, to the view that 
the gods were wholly indifferent to human affairs ; and 
on the other with the Stoics, to the making of a clear dis- 
tinction between the popular gods of their mythology and 
the one god of nature, possessing personality and exercising 
a providential care over man. The old Roman religion had 
fostered many social and individual virtues, which in this 
latter period, however, had lost all of this beneficial influence 
save on activities of a political and legal nature. As the 
Roman religion culminated in the deification of the emperors, 
who more often nan not were the very embodiment of vice, 
the absurdity of this political rehgion became apparent to all. 
Though the religion of divination and of oracles persisted 
until after the conversion of the empire, it had long been 
scoffed at as mere fabrications for the unintelligent. Even as 
early as the second century b.c, Cato had wondered that 
two augurs could meet with sober countenances. Neither 
religions nor philosophies had taught any doctrines concern- 
ing the future life, and consequently had no means of enforc- 
ing any moral teaching upon the unintelligent masses. 

Effects of Christianity upon the Thought Life. — The con- 
tact of Christianity with this thought world had great results. 
Religion became disassociated from the state and ethics from 
philosophy : in religion, ethics and ..morality were given a 
new basis and a hold, altogether unprecedented, upon the 
masses of mankind. With this reassociation of religion, 
ethics, and politics, there came other readjustments of vital 
interest to education. Religion lost its previous relationship 
to aesthetic culture aaito Htera.ture,., philosophy its intimate 



2 28 History of Education 

connection with the practical life through ethics. For many 
centuries education took upon itself a moral and religious 
character to the neglect of the aesthetic and intellectual 
phases so essential to the education of the classical world. 

CONTACT OF CHRISTIANITY WITH THE WORLD OF 
ACTION. — Some of the leading political and moral char- 
acteristics of Roman imperial society, as these bore upon the 
formation of classes and the determination of the nature of 
the education of the upper class, have already been noticed 
(pp. 209-212). There remain to be mentioned a few more 
striking moral characteristics of, all classes of society of both 
the Eastern and Western Empire, of both the Greek and 
the Roman, that reveal by contrast the nature and value 
of the early Christian education. 

The virtues of the Greeks and Romans were largely civic. 
In all stages of their history the types of virtue held highest in 
general estimate were those of patriotism, bravery, and of ser- 
vice of any kind to the state. The personal virtues of sym- 
pathy for the unfortunate, of regard for fellow-man, of charity, 
were seldom dwelt upon and never very highly regarded. 
Now with the imperial period, as previously noted, even these 
civic virtues rapidly disappear. The emperor assumes to him- 
self and his subordinates all power; even municipal govern- 
ment disappears save as a machinery for tax gathering, and 
there is no demand upon the individual citizen for political 
services or opportunity for such activity other than through 
personal abasement to an absolute and irresponsible power. 
The army is filled with mercenaries, and the old Roman 
bravery, dignity, and sobriety give way to love of ease, to 
indulgence, and to sensuality. Consider what must have been 
the results. 

This large free population had for generations come to 
look upon themselves as the lords of the earth. They now 
had few political and military obligations or opportunities for 



Middle Ages 229 

activity ; they were shut out from all mercantile and indus- 
trial pursuits by the immense class of slaves ; they were 
supplied at Rome and the immediate vicinity with all neces- 
sities by the lavish distribution of food and even of money 
by the emperors. Their religion offered no restraint to their 
vices and no belief in a future life that would bring retribu- 
tion or reward for conduct in this : on the contrary, it fur- 
nished occasions for the grossest scenes of public sensuality. 
They had before them a court and an aristocracy often given 
to unimaginable excesses and debauchery. The theater fur- 
nished amusements which had little resemblance in their 
degeneracy even to those of the present time which are most 
reprehensible ; and in public spectacles thousands of their 
fellow-men and of animals were slain amid all the refinements 
of cruelty and bloodthirstiness. One of the most difficult 
features of Rom . society to comprehend is the importance 
and the extent of these gladiatorial shows. They met with 
little condemnation from even the moralists of the times, and 
practically the only restrictions placed upon them by the 
empire were the prevention of the enrollment of senators 
among the gladiatorial class, and the prohibition of the 
slaughter of an excessive number of men, though that at the 
accession of Trajan more than ten thousand men thus fought 
for public amusement was not considered excessive. The 
most refined women of the period were devoted to these 
public spectacles ; even women descended to fight in the 
circus ; there were connoisseurs in the expressions of men 
dying in torture ; at private banquets men were torn to pieces 
by wild beasts for the entertainment of guests. It was said 
of one of the emperors that he " never supped without human 
blood." These facts indicate how decadent beyond all modern 
standards was this society; how impossible it is for us now 
to comprehend those times ; and also what was the task be- 
fore the new Christian education. 

Tacitus said of imperial society, even in his own times, 



230 History of Education 

" Virtue is the sentence of death ; " and Mr. Lecky, com- 
menting on this statement says, " In no period had brute 
force more completely triumphed, in none was the thirst for 
material advantages more intense, in very few was vice more 
ostentatiously glorified." 

CHRISTIANITY IN REACTION AGAINST THIS WORLD 
OF ACTIVITY. Early Christian Life a Schooling. — In its 

reaction against this corrupt society of the last pagan cen- 
turies, life in the early Christian Church was a schooling of 
very great importance ; to be sure, this was not a schooling 
of an intellectual character, but we have previously seen how 
formal and how futile was the intellectual education for some 
centuries of the new era. Education now for a thousand 
years is to possess very little of the intellectual element. It 
was during this period that the character of the education 
dominant for the thousand years after the Christianization of 
the Roman Empire was shaped. As a type of education — 
the religious education that has existed quite as long as any 
other — and as an element that enters into all education, it 
is important for the student of educational history to compre- 
hend it. 

The early Church was concerned in the moral reformation 
of the world, in the destruction of the state of society already 
described ; for this reason it turned its attention wholly to 
the moral education of its own membership and thus to the 
regeneration of society. The gladiatorial shows, which had 
extended their demoralizing influence throughout the empire, 
were put down by the Church, though not without a long 
struggle ; divorce, which had become such an evil that it was 
said that men changed their wives as easily as their clothes, 
was forbidden or at least strictly regulated ; infanticide, 
which was universally practiced and had been largely respon- 
sible for the great shrinkage of population and had been 
combated, when at all, by philosophers and by government 



Middle Ages 231 

only on political grounds and hence ineffectively, was now 
opposed on moral grounds and rooted out of the Church and 
finally out of society at large ; in a similar manner, the ex- 
posure of children was definitely treated as murder, and 
through the teaching of the early Church and the large sums 
of money which it spent for the care of such children, the 
standard of public opinion was raised from the incompre- 
hensibly low one of the entire classical period ; the immoral 
public ceremonials and the lascivious practices of private 
worship of the pagan religions were of course denied all 
communicants of the new Church and were in time driven 
from public tolerance. In these respects, and, above all, 
through the high standards of personal morality, as expressed 
in the Mosaic law and in the Sermon on the Mount, standards 
altogether unknown among the masses of population, the 
early Church enforced a moral education that was entirely 
new in the history of the world as well as in the history of 
education. If one will compare the simplicity and purity of 
character of early Christian worship with the ceremonials 
of the pagan religions ; the character of the Christian priest- 
hood with that of the pagan cults ; the morality inculcated in 
the one with the habit fostered in the other ; the sacrifice 
entailed in the one with the indulgence granted in the other ; 
the humanitarian sentiments in the one with the cruelty and 
brutality, however refined, in the other ; the charity and gen- 
erosity of the one with the selfishness of the other ; if these 
comparisons be made, the importance of this education will 
be readily understood. 

It is the unanimous testimony of historians that for the 
first two centuries, and for a large part of the third, the life 
upheld by the Christian Church, with its purity yet unsullied 
and its ambitions yet untainted, furnished one of the most 
remarkable phenomena in history ; and that this purity of 
life was largely responsible for the rapidity and thoroughness 
of its conquest of the Roman world. This high ideal of 



232 History of Education 

moral life was exacted from all its membership, and since 
during this time, the body of church membership was sharply 
marked off from the rest of society, delinquent members 
could readily be returned in disgrace into the body of popu- 
lation whence drawn. Since it was neither honorable, popu- 
lar, nor profitable in the worldly sense to live this Christian 
life, those adhering to the new ideal were more genuinely 
devoted to its teachings than was true in a later age when 
the whole Roman world became Christian. In this sense 
early Christianity was a schooling. 

Catechumenal Schools. — In the early Church there grew 
up, as a matter of necessity, a process of instruction for 
those who desired to become members of the Christian com- 
munity but who lacked the requisite knowledge of doctrine 
and the requisite moral stability. In general these were 
divided into two groups, — those who had merely expressed 
a desire to become members of the Church, and those who 
were thought by the Church to be worthy of full admission. 
Only after candidates had undergone some instruction and 
discipline were they received into full communion through 
the sacrament of baptism. The tendency in this early period 
was to postpone this rite of baptism for a longer and longer 
time until eventually the custom gave origin to great evils. 
These catechumens included children of believers, Jewish 
converts, and the adult converts of the heathen population. 
Though to a certain extent the discipline entailed was intel- 
lectual, in that it had to do with doctrines, it was for the most 
part a moral discipline and a moral oversight. In one 
other respect, in music, this instruction possessed significance. 
The psalmody of the early Church, especially in the East, 
was of conspicuous importance. In regard to moral train- 
ing, this use of music was probably of an importance com- 
parable with the function of music in Greek education. At 
stated periods in the week, in some places every day, the 
catechumens met in the porch or in some other specific 



Middle Ages 233 

portion of the church for instruction and moral training. 
This custom of catechumenal instruction was universal and 
through it, supplemented by the oversight of the home 
which was far more rigid than that of the contemporary 
Roman or Grecian home, the children of the Christian popu- 
lation received whatever education they obtained. 

Catechetical Schools. — From their method, and from 
their use of the catechism as the basis of their instruction 
in subject-matter, the catechumenal schools were also called 
catechetical schools. But. by way of distinction this term is 
better applied to a development of these schools in a few 
localities into institutions carrying on a higher grade of 
work. As the Christian leaders at Alexandria and othei 
Eastern centers came in conflict with the Greek schools of 
thought, it became more and more necessary to equip the 
leaders and the ministers of the Church with a training 
similar to that of the Greeks. For some centuries Alex- 
andria was the center of this intellectual and theological 
activity. In 179 a.d. Pantaenus, a converted Stoic philoso- 
pher, became head of the school for catechumens at Alexan- 
dria. Bringing to the service of Christian instruction the 
learning of the Greek philosopher and the eloquence of a 
rhetorician, through him and his successors both philosophy 
and rhetoric — in fact all the Grecian learning — was brought 
to the service of the Church. Pantaenus was succeeded in 
turn by the two most noted of the Greek Church Fathers, 
Clement and Origen, from whom came the earliest formula- 
tion of Christian theology. Such schools, though of less 
importance, grew from the catechumenal schools elsewhere. 
In 231 Origen, compelled to leave Alexandria, established 
a similar school in Asia where he taught philosophy, rhetoric, 
logic, astronomy, and practically the entire round of Grecian 
learning. Here literature, history, and science were studied 
as in Grecian schools, though from a different point of view. 
Though to this school came scholars of all classes, it became 



234 History of Education 

a school especially for the training of the clergy under the 
direction of the local bishop. 

Episcopal and Cathedral Schools. — Thus there grew from 
this rather indefinite institution, termed the catechetical 
school, the very definite type, that developed all over Europe, 
constituting throughout the Middle Ages a class of schools 
as important in some respects as those of the monasteries, 
and persisting until the present time. Other schools, such 
as that of Origen at Caesarea, though less thorough, were 
estabhshed throughout the East by other bishops for the 
training of their clergy and for the general instruction of 
converts. It was but natural that in a population well edu- 
cated and much given to philosophical and theological dis- 
cussion such schools should flourish. Calixtus, Bishop of 
Rome, during the opening year of the third century estab- 
lished there a similar institution, which developed rapidly 
into a flourishing school patronized by emperors and possess- 
ing a large library under the charge of skilled librarians whose 
names are preserved to us from the fifth century. Promotion 
in the ranks of the clergy soon came to depend somewhat upon 
studies carried on in this or similar institutions. Such schools 
developed rapidly because, as the identity of the words pagan 
and countryman indicates, the spread of the gospel occurred 
through the large cities. As the life of the priests gathered 
in these central places was brought into subjection to regular 
rules or canons, as was done first in 354, it became possible to 
regulate the work of such schools more definitely. During 
the fifth and sixth centuries the Church councils legislated 
that children destined for the priesthood should early be 
placed in these training places under the charge of the 
bishop. As the result of this and similar legislation, of 
the growth of powerful episcopal estates, of the need for 
the erection of appropriate buildings, and of the need for a 
larger body of clergy under the direction of the bishop, 
such schools became attached to practically every bishopric 



Middle Ages . 235 

in the West. In the West they were more commonly called 
cathedral schools from the building where located. With 
the overthrow of Roman culture by the barbarians, when 
education fell into the hands of the Church completely, these 
schools with those of the monasteries remained the only ones 
of the West. From the eighth to the twelfth centuries it is 
probable that the monastic schools were of far greater impor- 
tance than the cathedral schools ; but with the expansion of 
knowledge and the greater tolerance of inquiry, the rigidity 
and the narrowness of the monastic schools resulted in the 
renewed growth and revived importance of the schools under 
the immediate direction of the bishops. 

EARLY CHRISTIANITY IN REACTION AGAINST THE 
WORLD OF THOUGHT. — Opinions concerning the relation 
between Christianity and pagan learning and culture divided 
the leaders of the early Church into two quite well-defined 
groups. One held that this ancient learning contained much 
that was valuable for Christians and for the Church ; that 
much of it confirmed the teachiifgs of the Bible; that phi- 
losophy was a search for truth as Christianity was ; that all 
philosophies contained some valuable truth, though not the 
highest and not complete ; and that Christianity should in- 
clude all this ancient learning and should build upon it. The 
other group, recalling the scorn of the Greek philosophers, 
the insults and the atrocities heaped upon them by the repre- 
sentatives of this heathen culture, and the immoralities con- 
tained in their literature and sanctioned by their religions, 
held that there could be no compromise between the truth 
and the world ; that philosophies when connected with Chris- 
tianity produced only heresies ; that literature and culture in 
general represented merely the seductions and the pleasures 
of the world ; that those who were instructed in the legends 
of Homer, in the myths of Zeus and the gods, got from them 
nothing but lessons of impurity and, hence, that such litera- 



236 History of Education 

ture was unworthy of acceptance by the Christian Church; 
and consequently that the Church should reject all of this 
ancient learning as hostile to the interests and the purposes 
of Christianity. 

In general the view friendly to this learning prevailed in 
the earlier history of the Church and especially in the East 
among the Greeks ; the view hostile to this learning became 
more general in the West and, even before the overthrow 
of the old social structure by the barbarians, prevailed among 
the Christians of those parts. And it was but natural that 
the Christians of the West should identify heathenism with 
this ancient culture, for the chief hold which the old reli- 
gion retained upon the people was through this literature ; 
the most forcible opposition to the progress of the Church 
came from the class most conversant with this literature, and 
the chief stronghold of the pagan regime was, as we have 
seen, in the schools. On the grounds that a Christian could 
not appreciate, certainly could not teach Homer, Virgil, 
and similar works, the apostate emperor, Julian, forbade 
all Christians teaching in the rhetorical and grammatical 
schools. While this proscription implies the presence of 
many Christians in these schools, it is probable that they 
were merely nominal Christians, as was Augustine in his 
earlier years. That this attitude was fully reciprocated is 
indicated by the action of one of the synods of Carthage. In 
398, long after the Church was completely triumphant in the 
empire, even long after there was any specific danger to be 
apprehended from this pagan influence hiding in the old learn- 
ing, this synod forbade all bishops to read any of the pagan 
literature. This had come to be the attitude typical of the 
Church. With such a hostility it is not to be wondered that 
learning almost ceased to exist, and that there followed for 
some centuries the period commonly termed "the dark ages." 

Since this attitude of the Church explains to a large extent 
the condition of education for a thousand years, some further 



Middle Ages 237 

leasons in extenuation or explanation of it should be given. 
One of the most important of these has been mentioned : it is 
the fact that the great mission of the Church as well as the 
great need of the times was a moral one. Added to this was 
the belief prevalent throughout the early Church that the 
second advent of Christ was near, and that consequently, 
learning, culture, and in fact all mundane affairs were of 
trivial importance. The persecution and the exile which 
many Christians in the first three centuries were compelled to 
undergo deprived them of all opportunity for the acquisition 
of pagan learning had they desired it, and destroyed all 
inclination to attain to the most distinctive possession of 
their persecutors. In the section following, that on monasti- 
cism, is discussed more fully one other great reason for this 
indifference. This is asceticism or the opposition to all 
worldly interests and to all that gives satisfaction or pleasure 
of a human or natural character. Two other reasons, one 
operative in the earlier centuries, the other in later times, 
explain in part this indifference of the Church to learning. 
In the early period its success was largest with the lower 
class of people to whom its message brought a wonderful 
deliverance. They were disinclined, through nature, through 
sympathy, and through tradition, to take any great interest in 
the culture that had been made possible only by their debase- 
ment. In the later period, the strength of the Church was 
found in the new Teutonic peoples, whom, it is true, the 
Church raised out of barbarism, but to whom, at the same time 
it was impossible for many generations to impart the graces 
of culture. Again the unification of the Church in the West 
and its reputation and desire for orthodoxy acted as a check 
upon learning and upon the spirit of inquiry, that, after a 
manner, was fostered or permitted in the East long after it 
had disappeared in the West. 

As a foundation for the study of the subsequent ages a 
more concrete view of this difference in the attitude between 



238 History of Edttcation 

the early and the later, the eastern and the western Church, 
IS desirable. 

Attitude of the Greek Christian Fathers toward Learning. — • 
Though the Apostle Paul remarked that " not many wise are 
called," by the second and third centuries many trained in 
all the learning of the Greeks had accepted Christianity. 
Among these Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Origen 
and Basil, and others of the Greek Fathers were the most 
prominent. It is but natural that these men, who were pri- 
marily Greek philosophers and most of them teachers as well, 
should aim to bring all of .this learning to the service of the 
Church. 

The earliest of importance was Justin Martyr, whose life 
covers approximately the first three quarters of the second 
century. A converted teacher of philosophy, he continued 
throughout his life, to follow his profession, to wear his phi- 
losopher's garb, and to retain his belief in Platonism. He 
claimed that Plato, Socrates, and Heracleitus were Christians 
before the time of Christ, and that philosophy was an 
attempt, though falhng short, after the same end as Chris- 
tianity. Consequently, he held, the teachings of philosophy 
were included in those of Christianity, and so far as they were 
correct, harmonized with it. 

Clement (c. i6o-c. 215) was the successor of Pantaenus as 
head of the catechetical school at Alexandria. Holding that 
the Gospels were perfected Platonism and, with early Chris- 
tian philosophers in general, that " Plato was Moses Atticized," 
Clement taught that pagan philosophy was " a pedagogue to 
bring the world to Christ." Another one of his doctrines was 
that God had made three covenants with man, — the law, the 
Gospel, and philosophy. Most of his teachings and writings 
were directed toward the reconciliation of faith and reason, 
of Christian revelation and pagan philosophy. To such a 
degree did he find this true that to him Christianity became, 
for the most part, a philosophy. His citations from writings 



Middle Ages 239 

of the Greeks show a famiUarity with many hundred different 
works in every field of literature. 

His pupil and successor, Origen, the most learned of the 
Christian Fathers (c. 185-c. 2 54), when speaking of the sciences 
of the Greeks, wrote : " They are to be used so that they may 
contribute to the understanding of the Scriptures; for just as 
philosophers are accustomed to say that geometry, rnusic, 
grammar, rhetoric, and astronomy all dispose us to the study 
of philosophy, so we may say that philosophy, rightly studied, 
disposes us to the study of Christianity. We are permitted 
when we go out of Egypt to carry with us the riches of the 
Egyptians wherewith to adorn the tabernacle ; only let us 
beware how we reverse the process, and have Israel to go 
down into Egypt and seek for treasure ; that is what Jere- 
boam did in old time, and what heretics do in our own." This 
allegorical use of the despoiling of the Egyptians occurs over 
and over again in later times, as by St. Augustine himself. 
As the founder of systematic theology, the formulator of most 
of the dogmas of the Church, the earliest scientific critic of 
the Scriptures, Origen exerted the most extended influence 
of any of the Fathers except possibly St. Augustine. Espe- 
cially through his teachings concerning the harmony of the 
pagan sciences with the doctrines of rehgion, of Greek culture 
with Christian faith, he reconciled the Greek world to the new 
religion and aided in its dissemination. 

By the time of St. Basil (331-379) and Gregory of Nazi- 
anzus (C.325-C.390), the opposition of the Christians to pagan 
learning and especially to Greek philosophy had become 
more pronounced; but both these Fathers unite in the protest 
of the earlier ones against this prejudice and in the effort to 
show that Greek literature is full of both principle and event, 
of both precept and example, helpful in instruction and lead- 
ing to the higher life. Speaking of the closing of the pagan 
schools to Christians by Julian (p. 236), Gregory wrote : " For 
my part I trust that every one who cares for learning will 



240 History of Educatioit 

take part in my indignation. I leave to others fortune, birth, 
and every fancied good which can flatter the imagination of 
man. I vakie only science and letters, and regret no labors 
that I have spent in their acqilisition. I have preferred and 
shall ever prefer learning to all earthly riches, and hold 
nothing dearer on earth, next to the joys of heaven and the 
hopes of eternity." However, the opinions of these later 
Fathers is not so unqualified as that of the earlier. It is only 
within limits that learning is recommended. Later Chrysostom 
(c. 347-411), though not in condemnation, it is true, yet with 
greater disparagement, writes, " I have long ago laid aside 
such follies, for one cannot spend all one's hfe in child's play." 
And Basil, writing on the education of children, thus sums 
up his judgment, expressed fully in a much longer discussion: 
" Are we then to give up literature .'' you will exclaim. I do 
not say that ; but I do say that we must not kill souls. . . . 
In fact, the choice lies between two alternatives : a liberal 
education which you may get by sending your children to the 
pubhc schools, or the salvation of their souls which you secure 
by sending them to the monks. Which is to gain the day, 
science or the soul.? If you can unite both advantages, do 
so by all means ; but if not, choose the most precious." 

Attitude of the Latin Church Fathers. — By the fourth 
century, especially among the Roman Christians, Hellenism 
had become almost synonymous with hostihty to the Church. 
Most of the Latin Fathers — Tertullian, Arnobius, Lactantius, 
Gregory, Augustine — had been teachers of oratory or of 
rhetoric. Tertullian was primarily a lawyer; Jerome and 
Augustine were saturated with the pagan learning. All were 
skilled in the science, if not the practice, of Roman learning 
and education, and some had written treatises upon these 
subjects. 

Tertullian (C.150-C.230), the earliest of the Latin Fathers, 
reveals the attitude of the West in a most characteristic man- 
ner. To him all Grecian learning was bound up with heresies 



Middle Ages 241 

and, as he was especially engaged in the conflict against Gnos- 
ticism, he sought to widen the breach between philosophy 
and the Church. In his Prescription against Heresies, he 
writes : — • 

"These are 'the doctrines ' of man and 'of demons' pro- 
duced for the itching ears of the spirit of this world's wisdom ; 
this the Lord called 'foolishness,' and chose even the foolish 
things of this world to confound even philosophy itself. For 
philosophy is the material of the world's wisdom and rash 
interpreter of the nature and dispensation of God. Indeed, 
heresies themselves are instigated by philosophy. From this 
source came the aeons and I know not what infinite forms, 
and the trinity of man in the system of Valentinus, who was 
of Plato's school, (etc.). . . . The same subject-matter is 
discussed over and over again by the heretics and the philos- 
ophers; the same arguments are involved. Whence comes 
evil .'' Why is it permitted .-' What is the origin of man } 
and in what way does he come .■'... Unhappy Aristotle ! 
who invented for these men dialectic, the art of building up 
and pulling down ; an art so evasive in its propositions, so 
far fetched in its conjectures, so harsh in its arguments, so 
productive of contentions — embarrassing even to itself — 
retracting everything, and really treating of nothing ! Whence 
spring those ' fables and endless genealogies ' and ' unprofit- 
able questions ' and ' words which spread like a cancer ' 'i 
From all these, when the apostle would restrain us, he ex- 
pressly names philosopJiy as that which he would have us be 
on our guard against. . . . What indeed has Athens to do 
with Jerusalem t What concord is there between the 
Academy and the Church } What between heretics and 
Christians t . . . Away with all attempts to produce a mot- 
tled Christianity of Stoic, Platonic, and dialectic composition!" 

In his work On Idolatry in the chapter On ScJtoohnasters and 
their Difficulties, while he absolutely denies that a Christian 
can be a teacher of this ancient learning, he is som.ewhat 
more tolerant toward the study of it since thus one might be 
able to refute its errors. 

To St. Jerome (331-423), the translator of the version of 



242 History of Education 

the Bible for centuries accepted by the Church, this conflict 
between the classical learning and the Christian faith became 
most clearly defined. Perhaps no single event of this general 
conflict had so great an influence upon succeeding genera- 
tions, by which it was repeated over and over, as that of his 
famous vision (374). Dreaming that he was dead and 
dragged before the judgment sea\, he was asked the ques- 
tion, " Who art thou ? " Upon answering, " A Christian," he 
heard with the stricken conscience that repeated its awful 
warning to many successive generations, the terrible judg- 
ment, " It is false :„thou art no ChHstian ; thou art a Cicero- 
nian; where the treasure is, there the heart is also." Jerome 
was also chiefly responsible for the introduction of monasti- 
cism into the West. The love of learning and the ascetic 
idea were the two conflicting motives appealing to him 
throughout his life. As is shown by his constant quotation 
from classical authors, he could not entirely give up his love 
for pagan learning, though after this vision he turned his 
scholarship entirely to scriptural study and religious writings. 
While he could no longer favor an education in the old litera- 
ture, he could not bring himself absolutely to condemn it. 
As he shows in his Letter to Laeta (CVII) he believed that if 
such studies were to be permitted at all, it should be " rather 
to judge them than to follow them." 

In the case of St. Augustine the same retrograde move- 
ment in respect to appreciation for the old learning is to 
be found as in the case of Jerome. Augustine (354-430), 
until middle life a teacher of rhetoric and oratory, had begun 
a cyclopedia on the liberal arts, of which he completed the 
portion on grammar, a part of that on music, and the intro- 
ductions to the other parts. His treatise on dialectic, either 
original or epitomes from Aristotie, had considerable influ- 
ence in the later Middle Ages. Nor so thorough a scholar as 
Jerome, he yet was a man of broad interests and sympathies, 
and one passionately fond of Latin literature. Being intel- 



Middle Ages 243 

lectually the most active and the most brilliant of the Fathers 
of the western Church, and exerting the widest, the deepest, 
and the most far-reaching influence of them all, he called into 
service his extended learning in combating the many heresies 
in the Church through polemic and expository writings. 
Thus, while in his earlier years he sanctioned " the spoiling of 
the Egyptians," at a later period of his life his sympathy for 
classical learning was much restricted. He discountenanced 
its use and is supposed to have been personally responsible 
for the prohibition of philosophical and literary study made 
by the Council of Carthage (p. 236). 

§ 2. MONASTICISM. EDUCATION AS A MORAL DISCIPLINE 

SCOPE OF MONASTICISM AND IMPORTANCE OF 
MONASTIC EDUCATION. — Monasticism and monastic edu- 
cation are topics so large that even were it necessary it would 
be impossible to give a complete view of the educational 
importance of monasticism within the limits of a few pages. ^ 
In the period of time covered, it reaches from the fourth to the 
sixteenth, even to the eighteenth, century ; in the types of life 
represented it includes the anchorite in the desert, the cenobite 
in his cell, the friar in his wanderings, and the Jesuit in his 
schoolroom or on his political or ecclesiastical mission ; in the 
territory influenced it extends from the valley of the Nile to 

1 What Professor McGiffert says of the institution as a whole, may quite as truth- 
fully be applied to its educational importance : " Within monasticism's mighty bosom 
have surged the passions and the longings of multitudes of the noblest and of 
the meanest of the sons of earth. Hope, fear, love, hate, humility, pride, self- 
effacing devotion, self-asserting ambition, world-renunciation, and world-conquest 
— all the impulses of which the human heart is capable have flourished in monas- 
ticism's fruitful soil. The study of monasticism is the study not of a minor .gov- 
ernment or of a side eddy within the Christian Church, but of Christianity itself, 
for Christianity was for centuries monasticism. But the study of monasticism is a 
study not of Christianity alone, but of life — for monasticism was for centuries 
life at its noblest and its basest." (Harnack, Alonasticisin, Introduction.) In its 
educational relationship monasticism presents a similar diversity of types. 



244 History of Education 

che highlands of Scotland ; in the diversity of types of intel- 
lectual life represented, it includes the fearfulness of the 
hermit, the indifference of many a cenobite, the enthusiasm 
of the friar, and the brilliancy of the followers of Loyola. 
Without pretense of giving any adequate account of the his- 
tory or of the educational activity of monasticism, it needs 
to be here presented only as a type. Yet as a type it is of 
great importance, historically, if not in the present. In monas- 
ticism the education of the early Church finds its culmination 
and perpetuation. From the sixth century to the thirteenth, 
save for the cathedral schools, — which during the greater 
part of this period were in a state of but minor activity and 
even then taught for the most part by monks, — there was in 
Western Europe no other education containing any intellec- 
tual element. Again, since in the activities of the friars 
the work of the early universities is largely included, for three 
additional centuries this type of monasticism continued to be 
the most important single educational institution. It is an 
educational topic of such wide significance that must be pre- 
sented in the few pages that follow. 

In this discussion little or no attention is given to the con- 
stant tendency to decline in the character of the monastic 
life, and to the general decay that occurred throughout the 
monastic organizations after the fervor of the friar movement 
had expended itself, and that had much to do with the origin 
and violent character of the Reformation movement. Such 
topics are aside from educational interests of a narrower 
character, and discussions of them are rendered impossible by 
the scope of the work. 

The term "monasticism," in its original significance, could 
be applied to the hermit alone. It is frequently used in a sense 
that would exclude the mendicant orders (see p. 330) of the 
thirteenth century, the canonical clergy that Hve, as do also 
the Dominicans, under the rule formulated by St. Augustine, 
and the teaching congregations of the post-Reformation period 



Middle Ages 245 

(see p. 420). Yet the terra is here used, as it is commonly, 
in its most general significance, to include all these forms. 
Through these various stages and changes, of working con- 
ception as well as of rules, we cannot for lack of space trace 
the monastic development. As our interest is primarily in 
monastic education as a type, and especially in its ideal of 
education as a moral discipline, our interest in its schools 
is confined for the most part to that period preceding the 
thirteenth century. Then other types of schools and other 
conceptions of education arose. But from the sixth to the 
sixteenth century the history of monasticism is the history of 
education. 

ORIGIN OF MONASTICISM. — The primary idea of mo- 
nasticism is asceticism. In its original significance, the word 
asceticism indicates the training or discipline of the athlete in 
preparation for the physical contests ; in its figurative use it 
connotes the subjection or the disciplining of all bodily desires 
and human affections that the mind and soul may be devoted 
to the interests of the higher life. Found in some degree in all 
types of religious beliefs, it was given a special prominence 
in many of the types of beliefs — the Jewish, Persian, the 
Egyptian, and several of the Grecian philosophical sects — 
with which Christianity early came in conilict. In all of 
these the highest ethical thought was that of rising to spir- 
itual excellence and insight through the mortification of all 
natural and material wants ; through fasting, through pen- 
ance, through flagellation, through prolonged and enervating 
physical exercise or, better still, through inducing a quies- 
cence of the physical nature and the complete eradication of 
natural desires and temporal interests. Thus the Christian 
ascetics united in themselves the Stoic virtues of contempt of 
pain and of death and the indifference to the vicissitudes 
of fortune, the Pythagorean customs of silence and of sub- 
mission of the physical nature, and the' Cynic neglect of 



246 History of Edtication 

the obligations and the forms of society. In the teachings 
of Christ also, in his command to take no thought for the 
morrow, to sell all one's goods and give to the poor, to 
forsake father and mother, wife and children, and, above all, 
in the frequent exhortations to world-renunciation and to the 
devotion of one's self to* the service of spreading the Gospel, 
the ascetic idea found support. 

Similar to the idea of asceticism, though not quite identical 
with it, — for it formed but a part of the larger thought, — 
was the more prevalent motive of world-renunciation. A part 
of the root idea of asceticism was the belief — held also by 
Gnosticism — that God no longer ruled in the world of matter, 
or more especially, in the corrupt social life around the early 
Christians, and that consequently the true Christian life was 
to be obtained by a renunciation of this world — an isolation 
from the affairs of everyday life. To this extent monasti- 
cism was merely an expression of the desire to save one's self 
by leaving one's fellows to their sins and their just punish- 
ment. This motive prevailed to the greatest extent in the 
old classical society ; for when the new Teutonic peoples came 
into control, world-renunciation was replaced by the motive 
of world-conquest. 

One other important condition, which, if not a cause of the 
origin, was at least the great cause of the development of 
monasticism, was the changed character of the Christian 
Church from the third century on. By the middle of the 
third century the Church had become largely secularized ; by 
the opening of the fourth, with the conversion of the empire 
(312, 322, etc.), Christianity was identified with society; the 
customs and manners of the world were the customs and 
manners of Christendom ; the Christians were no longer a 
marked-off or distinctive people. It happened then that the 
clergy, or more especially the monks, became a body of 
separated people, as before the entire Church had been, living 
according to a higher code of morality, possessing distinctive 



Middle Ages 247 

marks of their profession, and abstaining from the common 
interests and activities of society. 

Two other causes of the development of monasticism need 
but to be mentioned. One was the persecutions that drove 
many Christians to the wilds of the deserts and the moun- 
tains ; and the other was the belief — almost universal in the 
early Church — that the second advent of Christ was at hand, 
and that consequently no interest in the affairs of everyday 
life were to be considered in comparison with the spiritual 
preparation for the new life near at hand. 

Out of these ideas and practices of the religious sects of 
the East and the philosophical schools of the Greeks, Christian 
monasticism developed naturally upon the soil where at this 
time both religions and philosophies found their most ardent 
devotees, — that is, in Egypt. However early this movement 
may have begun, its coming into prominence was first due to 
Anthony, who in 305 fled to the desert, and there near the 
shores of the Red Sea subjected himself to a series of physi- 
cal penances — tortures one might almost say — that were 
the first of a long line of exacting, ingeniously devised, and 
heroically endured practices for the mortification of the flesh. 
His example begot many imitations, and soon one of his 
followers, Pachomius, had collected fourteen hundred followers 
who desired to imitate this life of effacement for the sake of 
spiritual benefit. The ideal in the East ever continued to be 
that of isolated life as a hermit or anchorite. Monasticism 
was transferred to Greece by Basil and to Rome by Atha- 
nasius (341) and Jerome. But throughout the West neither 
nature nor the human mind was favorable to this life of 
isolation and quiesence, so life in communities — the cenobitic 
life — was preferred to that of the anchorite. Such com- 
munities during the fourth and the fifth centuries became 
very numerous. Each was controlled in its independent 
existence by its own rules. Some of them, it is true, adopted 
the rules of St. Basil, the only ones ever introduced at all 



248 History of Edtication 

generally in the East ; but in 529 Benedict, a Roman patrician, 
who had fled from the scandals and corruption at Rome to 
find in the solitary life relief from such wickedness and such 
temptation, and who had drawn around him many attracted 
by his own life of spiritual devotion, organized a community 
under a set of rules. While these were designed only for his 
own group, they soon became of universal influence through- 
out the West. 

IDEALS OF MONASTIC LIFE AND EDUCATION. Asceti- 
cism an Ideal of Discipline. — The rules of monastic life might 
present the greatest variation ; its ideals were everywhere the 
same. In all places and in all ages its dominant ideal was 
that of asceticism. The virtue of the monk was often meas- 
ured by his ingenuity in devising new and fantastic methods 
of mortifying the flesh through fasting, through eating in- 
sufficient and inappropriate foods, through taking insufficient 
sleep, through wearing insufficient clothing, through assuming 
unnatural postures of extreme discomfort andmaintainingthem 
sometimes for months, through uncleanliness of body, through 
binding the limbs with ligatures, through loading the body with 
chains and weights, through every means which would reduce 
or even destroy the natural wants or would produce suffering 
from insufficient care for them. That at the same time this 
regime might also destroy or weaken the mind, and in any case 
make it subject to abnormal visions, which but increased 
through the terror of such temptations, the irrational regime 
that produced them seems seldom to have been noticed. All 
these forms of discipline were for the sake of the spiritual 
growth, the moral betterment of the penitent : all these, as 
the very significance of the word " asceticism " indicates, reveal 
the dominant conception of education which prevailed through- 
out this long period, — the idea of discipline of the physical 
nature for the sake of growth in moral and spiritual power. 
The ideals of monasticism were usually summed up in the three 



Middle Ages 249 

ideas of chastity, poverty, and obedience, or rnore technically, 
conversion, stability, and obedience. 

Chastity. — The idea of celibacy went far beyond the 
rigid restrictions of the early Church ; far beyond the pro- 
vision of celibacy for the clergy. The ideal was the con- 
demnation of the family and of all human relationship and 
affection. These were now to be completely effaced and their 
places taken by religious relationship, established through the 
monsstic rule and life, and by spiritual interests, realized 
through a life of silent isolation and of continuous devotion 
and worship. It was because the ties of relationship — the love 
of father, or mother, or child, or sister — represented the most 
powerful and least readily severed influence of "the world " 
that monasticism exerted its greatest strength to destroy 
them. Not only the lives of the saints, but also the writings 
of such a great and noble churchman as Jerome, are filled 
with incidents or counsels that appear to us now almost in- 
human, holding, as they did, that " in this matter cruelty is 
only piety." 

Poverty meant the rejection of all the material interests of 
the world ; for after Christianity became the state religion, 
the ordinary Christian could continue to be a merchant, a 
civil or military officer, or have part in any vocation devoted 
to the pursuits of earthly interests. Upon entering the mo- 
nastic Hfe one must give up all his property and all claims 
upon the rights of inheritance. Except on consent of his 
superior he could never receive anything as his own — not 
even a letter. Within the monastery all things were held 
in common, and this life was held to be the nearest approach 
possible to the commands of the Savior and to the life of the 
early Christian Church. It was through the influence of this 
monastic ideal of poverty that during so many medieval 
centuries the virtue of charity, or rather of mere giving, was 
exalted to the position of the highest Christian virtue, one that 
would cover the absence of almost all others. 



250 History of Education 

The Ideal of Obedience was the distinctive characteristic of 
the cenobitic life as opposed to the hermit Hfe. In the West, 
with few exceptions, the community monastic life prevailed. 
In entering this community one gave up all right of per- 
sonal choice, of disposal of his own time, of determination 
of his own interests. His will was completely subjected to 
the will of his superior, and in this last surrender and efface- 
ment was found the perfection of moral and spiritual growth. 
The entire routine of life and of its activities and interests 
was determined by minute precepts formulated in the rule of 
the house. Since one gave up all allegiance to other institu- 
tions, such an ideal was the surrender of the last evidence of 
personality and the negation of all political organization of 
society. This self-effacement was to be complete, and in 
the rules most generally adopted, minute regulations pur- 
sued him in his most secret moment. " Submission had to 
be prompt, perfect, and absolute. The monk must obey 
always, without reserve, and without murmur, even in those 
things which seemed impossible and above his strength, 
trusting in the succor of God, if a humble and seasonable 
remonstrance, the only thing permitted to him, was not ac- 
cepted by his superiors ; must obey not only his superiors, 
but also the wishes and requests of his brethren." ^ 

Social Significance of these Ideals. — Thus, in a manner, the 
monastic ideal had its negative as well as its positive signifi- 
cance. In its three great ideals it negated the three great 
aspects of social life, — the family, industrial society, and the 
s]taJ:e ; among the anchorites and in many cases in the western 
monasteries which rejected the oversight of the bishop, it 
tended to negate even the Church. Certainly it represented 
a type of disciplinary education which left out of account 
these three great classes of needs of society and emphasized 
and developed those moral virtues that, in a restricted sense, 
find expression largely through the Church and religion. 

■1 Montalembert, Monks of the IVesi, Vol. II, p. 423. 



Middle Ages 2^1 

On the other hand, monasticism became in the larger 
sense an educational force of very great importance to 
society as a whole. Each one of these monastic ideals in- 
troduced new factors into social development. For example, 
the habit of obedience, with its accompanying virtue of 
humility, presented as great a contrast as can be imagined 
to the strong individualism of the barbarian and the arrogance 
of the Roman. The ideals and habits of the monks entered 
into the reorganization of society in the institution of feu- 
dalism, revealed themselves in the crusade movement, and 
probably did more than any other single factor in the sub- 
jection of the rude Teuton to the restrictions of civilization 
and culture. 

THE MONASTIC RULES. — The details of these three 
great ideals are expressed in a code of rules, in the earlier 
days formulated and adopted by each individual monastery, 
but after the sixth century almost universally patterned in 
the West after the rules of St. Benedict (p. 248). 

It is proper to speak of the spread of these rules as being 
by adoption, for there was no general organization of monas- 
teries under Benedict's rules, but each remained independent 
as before. Nor were these rules exclusive : they were to be 
supplemental to rules already adopted, and individual monas- 
teries might add to them, as they di^,^;ve_ry generally after the 
eleventh century. These rules were seventy-three in number : 
nine relating to the general duties of abbots and monks; 
thirteen to worship ; twenty-nine to discipline, errors, penal- 
ties ; ten to the administration of the monastery, and twelve 
to various topics, such as reception of guests, conduct of 
monks while traveling, etc. The distinctive feature of the 
Benedictine Rule was the insistence upon manual labor of 
some kind added to the implicit obedience which the monk 
must render the abbot in the performance of this work. In 
very great divergence from the ideas and habits of the monk 



252 History of Education 

of the East, indolence was termed the enemy of the soul. 
To provide against this, at least seven hours a day must be 
given to some kind of toil. Thus at one stroke were eradi- 
cated from the monasteries of the West many of the evils 
that had come into monastic Ufe, both through the surrender 
to temptation coming as a result of idleness and to the more 
subtle evils of a subjective kind arising from enforced solitary 
confinement and a brooding over imaginary evils by minds 
little adapted to profit from such a course. The Benedictine 
Rule is the first recognition of the value of manual labor in 
education ; and though the conception of education and the 
value placed upon the manual activities in this moral training 
were both very different from those in our own time, they 
were a great step beyond the position of the Greeks and 
Romans. From this provision came most of the social bene- 
fits of monasticism in the West, — for in the broadest sense 
of the term monasticism was an education. In the cultiva- 
tion of the soil the monks furnished models for the peas- 
antry ; they introduced new processes for the craftsmen in 
wood, metal, leather, and cloth ; they gave new ideas to the 
architect ; in a way they stimulated and fostered trade among 
the mercantile class ; they drained swamps and improved 
public health and public life in almost every way ; and be- 
sides offered asylums to the poor, the sick, the injured, and 
the distressed. 

The rules also provided that two hours of each day should 
be devoted to reading ; indicated the portions of the Bible 
and of the Fathers to be read ; provided for the reading of 
the Bible during the meal hours ; and through minute rules 
saw to it that these times for reading were not to be wasted 
in idleness, in sleep, or in talking. Naturally the greatest 
care was given to minute specifications concerning worship ; 
the occasion, duration, and number of prayers throughout 
the day and night ; the song services, etc. 

To the rules of Benedict, there were very generally 



Middle Ages 253 

added during the eleventh and twelfth centuries more rigid 
rules by a variety of new monastic orders. The most not- 
able of all was the Cistercian Order (founded 1098), which ' 
carried asceticism to a greater extreme than any other body. 
It enjoined absolute silence, provided for the sohtary life so 
far as possible, simplified worship, and in their churches and 
ceremonials applied the most rigid ascetic rules as no other 
order ever had done. Common among these provisions of 
the eleventh-century reforms was that permitting the ad- 
mission to monastic orders of lay brothers exempt from the 
duties of religious service but devoted to the rough work of 
the monasteries. Though these formed a distinctly unedu- 
cated class, their presence permitted a greater devotion to 
study and to literature upon the part of the more educated. 
The general effect of this provision was to improve the lit- 
erary character and the educational work of the monasteries. 

MONASTICISM AND LITERARY EDUCATION. — As we 

have seen, monasticism was not primarily a scheme of education 
in the literary or school sense ; its conception of education was 
of a wholly different type, — one relating to the formation of 
moral and rehgious character alone. Many, consequently, 
have resented any criticism of the learning or the educational 
efforts of the monks as altogether invalid, on the grounds 
that an institution or a class of people is not to be held 
responsible for that which it does not explicitly undertake. It 
is true that until the organization of the teaching orders in the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the monastic orders did 
not make education a controlling aim. On the other hand, it is 
also true that from the seventh to the opening of the thirteenth 
centuries, there was practically no other education but that 
offered by the monks, and that the Church and the monastic 
institutions were responsible for the fact that no other concep- 
tion of education existed and that no other educational institu- 
tions were tolerated. As we have seen, the Church through its 



2 54 History of Education 

hostile attitude and monasticism through its new and revoki- 
tionary ideals were largely responsible for the complete dis- 
appearance of the old cultural ideals, for the neglect of the 
study of the old literature, and for the substitution of a radi- 
cally different type of educational institutions in place of a 
rejuvenation of the old. Our need, however, is to appreciate 
exactly the character of the education that monasticism of- 
fered to the world for some six centuries in lieu of all others. 

The historical evidence concerning life during the Middle 
Ages is such that, together with our diverse emotional natures 
and conflicting religious bias, it permits two interpretations 
of most points connected with medieval education and thought 
life. Adhering as closely as possible to the facts, and omit- 
ting partisan bias, let us look at both sides of the question 
under the topic of 

Study in the Monasteries. — One must ever hold in mind 
the fundamental idea of asceticism, previously referred to as 
given in the literal meaning of the word, — that of discipline 
or training. St. Benedict, whose ideas were adopted through- 
out Western Europe by all of monasticism that comes within 
our 'view, did not believe that the mind or soul should be 
allowed to work simply upon itself to produce evils quite as 
great as those fled from, but that it should ever be kept busy. 
Hence he provided for seven hours of labor, chiefly manual, 
though it might be literary, and for from two to five hours 
of reading each day. Some similar provisions had been made 
before by St. Basil in the East. It was in all probability 
Cassiodorus, the great statesman, — who, as prime minister 
to several successive barbarian rulers of Italy, preserved so 
much of the ancient customs and who, in his old age, turned 
monk, — that formulated this idea and gave it to the Bene- 
dictines. From these provisions, imposed as matters of disci- 
pline for the monks, not for any external results, came most 
of the indirect social benefits of monasticism. If the monks 
must read, they must be taught to read, they must have 



Middle Ages 255 

books, and they must in turn teach the novices to read and 
copy manuscripts. Hence, without any word in the rules 
concerning schools and with but the briefest reference to the 
training of the youth accepted for the monastic life, without 
any direct reference to the copying of manuscripts or to the 
study of literature or to the preservation of books, all of these 
things followed. 

But there were other causes contributing to make the 
results of this one provision so great and so far-reaching. 
In those restless ages of rude culture, of constant warfare, of 
perpetual lawlessness and the rule of might, monasticism 
offered the one opportunity for a life of repose, of contem- 
plation, and of that leisure and relief from the ordinary vulgar 
but necessary duties of life essential to the student. Hence 
the youth who came at the age most impressionable, and 
most given to the pursuit of ideals, was influenced toward 
the life of reflection and of study ; those bereft of family and 
of protection found in the monastic cell a retreat and in study 
a consolation ; while those worn out with a life of toil, or 
shocked by the brutality and callous indifference about them, 
found here a natural resting place and in the pleasures of a 
life of reflection and study a legitimate reward for the burdens 
they had borne. 

Thus it happened that the monasteries were the sole 
schools for teaching ; they offered the only professional 
training ; they were the only universities of research ; they 
alone served as pubhshing houses for the multiplication of 
books ; they were the only libraries for the preservation 
of learning ; they produced the only scholars ; they were the 
sole educational institutions of this period. In each of these 
lines their activities were, to be sure, meager ; but the oppor- 
tunities were meager, and however great the needs, the 
conscious social demands of the times were more meager still. 

Every monastic rule — and they were much more numer- 
ous than this brief account would seem to indicate — either 



256 History of Education 

authorized indirectly or commanded directly the study of 
literature. The earliest of all rules, those of Pachomius, 
required specifically that every monk should read and write, 
and provided for the instruction of those admitted who could 
not. In the East this intellectual requirement was, of course, 
under the dominance of Greek ideas. The latest great mo- 
nastic movement, of the post-Reformation period, was specific- 
ally an educational one. The supplementary rules added 
from time to time by the Benedictine institutions laid more 
and more stress upon this literary aspect of their life. The 
most famous monasteries in every country were those noted 
for their learning and for the training they afforded. Typi- 
cal of these were those of Fulda and Hirschau in Germany ; 
at Tours, Corbie, Bee, and Clugny in France ; at St. Gall in 
Switzerland ; at Glastonbury, Malmesbury, and Canterbury 
in England ; at Monte Cassino in Italy. While these were 
exceptional institutions, there were many that adopted as 
their motto, " Love the study of Scriptures and you will not 
love vice." Some of the monasteries, especially those of the 
type mentioned above, carried their study much further and 
included the study of the Greek classics. At St. Gall, in the 
latter part of the tenth century, lectures were given on Cicero, 
Quintilian, Horace, Terence, Juvenal, Persius, Ovid, and 
Sophocles. To this subject we will return later. 

Let us now turn to the other side of the question and con- 
sider the meagerness of. the learning of the monks. We may 
disregard such careless judgments as are founded presum- 
ably upon isolated cases. Such is the argument respecting 
the probable rarity of books as evidenced by the extravagant 
prices paid for occasional ones ; the argument that many 
monasteries were without books, because mention is made 
of an occasional monastery in a dilapidated condition pos- 
sessed of only one missal (meaning probably several copies 
of the same work) ; that all monks were densely ignorant, or 
vicious, because occasional ones might be. There are, never 



Middle Ages 257 

theless, certain general conditions that must be borne in 
mind. In the first place, it was the study of the Scriptures 
only that was commended, and though the term Scripturce 
Sacrce indicated more than we understand by the term Holy 
Scriptures, including as it did all religious writings, it did not 
go beyond this. Then, again, study was never an end in itself, 
but simply a disciplinary means or an occupation for other- 
wise idle moments ; the instant study became an end or a 
pleasure in itself, the very purpose of its introduction into 
the monasteries was negated. Further, it is just as erroneous 
to argue from a few exceptional cases, such as St. Gall, or 
Monte Cassino, that " to the monk of the tenth century no 
knowledge was unfamiliar," as to argue from other occasional 
instances that they knew nothing. It is quite evident that 
many monks were entirely ignorant ; that many monasteries 
gave practically no attention to learning ; and that those which 
gave attention to secular literature were comparatively few. 
Considering the opportunity for study afforded by their 
leisure time, their freedom from interruption, their knowledge 
of the language, their possession of the few books existing, 
it is surprising that the monks made so little advande iii 
the knowledge of the ancients and created so little literary 
material- 

In explanation of this situation two further considerations 
are to be borne in mind. To most of these monks, save those 
in the intellectual centers, the study of ancient literature, dis- 
approved as it had been by the Church for several centuries, 
represented distinctly the interests and the temptations of the 
world, and a de'sire for such study was indulged in only at a 
distinct risk or as a positive sin. Such study was a gratifi- 
cation of human desires, a satisfaction of the tastes that was 
distinctly hostile to the idea of asceticism. The uncertain or 
changing attitude toward the ancient classics of such leaders 
as Jerome and Augustine would lend emphasis to the idea 
that all such learning was a temptation. 



258 Histo7y of Education 

The other consideration is most fundamental of all> and 
apphes to the intellectual life of the entire Middle Ages. 
Quite as prominent in its early history as now were the many 
divisions within the Christian Church. Even as late as the 
period of St. Augustine, these numbered eighty-five accord- 
ing to his own enumeration. As a result of this, both error 
of judgment and the state of intellectual doubt came to 
be looked upon as sinful. One of the most commendable 
traits of ancient society within the polytheistic period of 
Greece or Rome or in the later skeptical cosmopolitan 
periods, was toleration of beliefs. To this fact Christianity 
itself in its early days owed very much. But to the Christian, 
tolerance of a belief that might mean eternal damnation to 
those enslaved by it was no virtue but a distinct evil. Hence 
the very basis of all intellectual progress, the spirit of inquiry 
and the desire for truth or reality, irrespective of its effect 
upon emotional states or religious beliefs held as a matter 
of faith, was wanting to these ages. Doubt concerning any 
belief or an interpretation of a fact or incident established 
by the Church, or suggested by its relation to the welfare of 
the Church and the further development of this age of faith, 
came to be considered of as great demerit and evil as error 
itself. The validity of any statement, the actuality of any 
alleged instance, came to be determined, not by any applica- 
tion of rationahstic principle, not by inherent plausibility, not 
by actual inquiry into the facts of the case, but by its agree- 
ment with religious feelings or beliefs, its effect in furthering 
the influence of the Church or the reputation of a saint — in 
general, by its relationship to matters of faith. Thus it hap- 
pens that the chronicles of the monks and the lives of the 
saints, charming and interesting as they are in their naivete, 
their simplicity, their trustful credulity, and their pictures of 
a life and an attitude of mind so remote from ours, are filled 
with incidents given as facts that test the greatest faith, 
strain the most vivid imagination, and shock that innate 



Middle Ages 259 

respect for reality that it is the purpose of modern education 
to inculcate. 

Schools in the Monasteries. — Aside from the training of 
novices, wholly religious, and this provision for reading, there 
is no mention direct or indirect of schools or of instruction in 
the rules of St. Benedict. However, Benedict himself had 
accepted youth to train, and the monastery of Cassiodorus, 
which had great influence over the Benedictines, laid much 
greater stress upon intellectual training. Except for the train- 
ing of the monks themselves or of the youth offered for mon- 
astic life, the monasteries- made little provision during several 
centuries for schooling of any kind, and that given was chiefly 
of a religious character. The arts of reading and of writing, 
of singing and of calculating the Church calendar were, of 
necessity, given, though probably this latter was reserved for 
but a few. Rules supplementary to the original ones of St. 
Benedict were later adopted by the monasteries of the order. 
Those affecting the school required a novitiate of two years, 
and stipulated that no member should be received into the 
order under eighteen years of age. As boys not yet in their 
teens were often accepted, a prolonged schooling and disci- 
pline were provided. 

Previous to the later portion of the eighth century such 
schools throughout Western Europe, save in the British Isles, 
were very rudimentary, and the character of learning in all 
the monasteries was very meager, with no opportunity for 
education of boys not destined for monastic life. Especially 
in Ireland, and thence transported to the monasteries and 
cathedral foundations of England and Scotland, a knowledge of 
classical literature, even of the Greek tongue, was kept alive. 
This learning and interest in intellectual activity, and a 
breadth of view that was wanting during this time to the 
Continent as a whole, had been inherited by the Irish monks 
from the monasteries of the Romanized Celts of the Continent 
and of Britain, whence St. Patrick came. 



26o 



History of Education 



During the latter part of the eighth century, through a move- 
ment headed by the Emperor Charles the Great and his min- 
ister Alcuin, — a movement to be discussed later (pp. 274-8), 
— monastic schools became much more numerous and of 




A Monastic School for Interns and Externs. 

better grade, and very generally provided an education for 
youth not intended for monastic life. Though there was 
a decline during the ninth and the greater part of the 
tenth centuries, nevertheless, the monastic schools so dom- 
inated the realm of 'education that the eleventh century 
is known as the Benedictine Asre. This term is also fre- 



Middle Ages 261 

quently applied to the entire period from the seventh to the 
eleventh centuries. It was not until the eleventh century 
that there was any education to speak of outside of monastic 
schools, and not until the thirteenth century that there 
occurred marked changes in the character of education given 
in any institutions, for until then practically all of these 
schools were taught by monks. During all of this period 
it might be said that every monastery was a school, and that 
all education was either in the monasteries or under the 
direction of monks. 

We have spoken of the meagerness of this learning ; it 
may be well to notice it at its broadest. Alcuin tells of the 
work in the school of his master Albert, as follows : — 

"The learned Albert gave drink to thirsty minds at the 
fountain of the sciences. To some he communicated the art 
and the rules of grammar ; for others he caused floods of 
rhetoric to flow ; he knew how to exercise these in the battles 
of jurisprudence, and those in the songs of Adonia ; some 
learned from him to pipe Castalian airs and with lyric foot to 
strike the summit of Parnassus ; to others he made known 
the harmony of the heavens, the courses of the sun and 
the moon, the five zones of the pole, the seven planets, the 
laws of the course of the stars, the motions of the sea, 
earthquakes, the nature of men, and of beasts, and of 
birds, and of all that inhabit the forest. He unfolded the 
different qualities and combinations of numbers ; he taught 
how to calculate with certainty the solemn return of Easter- 
tide, and, above all, he explained the mysteries of the Holy 
Scriptures." 

For the fact that schools were not more numerous, and that 
the character of their work was not of a higher grade, the 
Church and the monastery must not be held altogether re- 
sponsible. It must be remembered that the masses of the 
people of these centuries were little more than barbarians, 
and that they certainly took much more naturally to warfare 
and destruction than they did to schooling. That learning 



262 



History of Educatiojt 



and the scholastic traditions should be preserved at all in the 
midst of a society not settled and of a people devoted largely 
to repelling invasions or engaging in similar excursions for 
depredation, was no inconsiderable service. 

The Copying of Manuscripts and the Preservation of Learn- 
ing. — Through the provision requiring a certain amount of 
reading each day, and the inclusion under the head of manual 
labor of the copying of manuscripts for those who were 

physically unable to per- 
form heavier tasks, or 
because of inclement 
weather, the monasteries 
came to perform quite 
as great a service to 
learning as that involved 
in the establishment of 
schools. This activity 
of the monks continued 
from the earliest formu- 
lation of the Benedictine 
rules, for the conduct of 
religious services de- 
pended upon a supply 
of the missals, of the 
Scriptures, and of the 
writings of the Fathers 
for daily reading. An architectural feature of every mon- 
astery was the scriptorimn, or general writing room. In 
many monasteries special cells for copyists were later added 
and also, in many instances, a hbrary and a schoolroom. 
That this work of the copyist was not merely mechanical, but 
was designed to have an intellectual and a moral effect as 
well, is indicated by the words used later at the consecration 
of the scriptorium: "Vouchsafe, O Lord, to bless this room 
of thy servants, that all which they write therein may be 




A Carmelite Monk in the Scriptorium. 



Middle Ages 263 

comprehended by their intelligence and realized in their 
works." As we have hitherto seen, this dedication would 
indicate that the monks were expected to deal with religious 
writings, but it was true also that the classics of Rome and 
a few of those of Greece, chiefly in Latin form, were also 
copied. If this had not been true, we should not have many 
of the classics that remain to us to-day. 

Montalembert goes so far as to claim that the knowledge 
of the classics was more general in France in the thirteenth 
century than it is at the present time, but this seems a great 
exaggeration. While it is not true of the period we have 
especially in mind in this discussion, — that from the sixth to 
the twelfth, — it is certainly true of the centuries immediately 
preceding and immediately succeeding this period that Church 
Fathers and Schoolmen, who wrote treatises intended for gen- 
eral circulation, depended upon the monastic copyist to give 
these wide circulation. 

It should be noted that many of the nunneries were quite 
as famous as were any of the monasteries for their manu- 
scripts, and some for their schools also. This work of copy, 
ing was peculiarly adapted to the abilities and inclinations of 
the female recluses. 

Another aspect of this relation of the monasteries to the 
literature of the past is to be noted. Many of the extant 
manuscripts devoted to the chronicles of the monastic founda- 
tion, to wearisome comment on some older sacred writings, or 
to the disquisitions of the Schoolmen, are written on parch- 
ment from which a previous writing, usually of some classical 
texts, has been removed by chemical or mechanical process. 
In this way, undoubtedly, many classical texts were destroyed. 
They were chosen for destruction with the distinct feeling 
that they were unworthy of preservation. Possibly in this 
way some ancient texts have been irrevocably lost for all 
time. This destructive, and from our point of view some- 
what barbarous, custom is not now believed to have been 



264 History of Education 

nearly as general as once supposed. It is thought to have 
flourished only after the thirteenth century, by which time 
duplicate manuscripts were common. Then the destruction 
of ancient writings was due to the increased demand for 
parchment consequent upon the rise of universities and to 
the interference of the source of supply in the East by the 
Saracen conquests. 

The Monasteries as Depositories of Literature and Learning. 
— One service which monasticism performed for learning 
cannot be gainsaid. Whatever of ancient learning and lit- 
erature we have preserved to us to-day is largely owing to 
the monks. Though the Arabs added much during the later 
Middte'Ages, even then such additions were given into the 
possession of the monks. These conservators of learning 
were very often ignorant of that which they preserved from 
obliteration ; but if it had not been for such places of retire- 
ment and of protection, it is difficult to see how more than 
the merest rudiments of the classics would have survived 
from the seventh to the twelfth century. Through all this 
long and tumultuous period of barbarian aggression, when the 
remnants of classic civilization, along with the fundamentals 
of social structure, were being transferred to a people no far- 
ther advanced in the stage of culture than were the American 
Indians, the monasteries served as the safety deposit vaults 
of learning, whose monkish keepers were all unaware of the 
precious jewels within their charge. Occasional glimpses of 
a rare gem but convicted them of sin for yielding to the 
temptation offered by the riches or the pleasures of a wicked 
world. 

While in the early Benedictine rules there is no mention 
whatever of the care of books, such mention appears in the 
later modifications of Clugny. Special rooms for libraries 
did not appear until much later, probably during the univer- 
sity period, but special provision for their care in cloister or 
cell had appeared long before. A monk of the twelfth 



Middle Ages 265 

century expresses clearly the attitude assumed toward learn- 
ing by monasticism long before his own time : " A monastery 
without a library is like a castle without an armory. Our 
library is our armory. Thence it is that we bring forth the 
sentences of the Divine Law like sharp arrows to attack the 
enemy. Thence we take the armor of righteousness, the hel- 
met of salvation, the shield of faith, and the sword of the 
spirit, which is the word of God." 

While the majority of monasteries possessed but few books, 
probably none outside of a strictly religious character, there 
were yet many that possessed hundreds and some few whose 
volumes mounted to the thousands. As early as the tenth 
century, that of Novalese, in Italy, was said to have had a 
library numbering sixty-five hundred volumes at the time it 
was destroyed by the Saracens. The few monasteries espe- 
cially noted for their learning had large libraries, and gave 
particular attention to the collection of books through the 
exchange of duplicates made by the monks. Among these 
more noted foundations there existed a very definitely regu- 
lated system of exchange, and several of the later orders 
made special provision in their rules for this interchange 
and for the requisite work of copying. Some few made it a 
means of financial support. This was first definitely accepted 
as the chief means of support by the Hieronymians (see 
p. 390) very late in the Middle Ages. During the later cen- 
turies, in cathedrals, in royal palaces, even in the castles of 
the nobility, collections began to be made that soon were to 
rival those of the older foundations. But with the founding 
of the universities and finally with the invention of printing, 
the monasteries, now that their great service had been per- 
formed, ceased to give as much attention to this activity ; or 
at least with changed conditions, the literary character of 
their service no longer appeared conspicuous. 

The Monks as Literary Producers. — Though the range of 
their interests was not broad, yet until the general appear- 



266 History of Education 

ance of vejjjaoakr Jitgjcatiir.©4n~4:he~ele¥e^ 
turies, the monks produced practically all the literature of 
this period. This included the lives of the saints, the short 
moral tales or sermons, — such as are collected in the Gesta 
Romanoriim, — Biblical or patristic comment, and monastic 
chronicles. The Schoolmen appeared about the same time 
as any considerable production of vernacular literature, and 
during all the later half of the Middle Ages the literary 
importance of the monks was overshadowed by the work of 
these classes. To be sure, the greater number of School- 
men were friars, whom we have included in this discussion 
with the monks. It is in the early half of the Middle Ages 
— the dark ages — that the monks had this unique position 
of including all learning within their organizations. 

Unhampered by any restrictions upon their faith or their 
credulity, with the tendency to doubt and the faculty of criti- 
cism atrophied, with imagination vivified by ascetic discipline 
and the horrors of the life of their times, the content of many 
of these writings, whether ostensibly historical or biographical, 
is limited only by the fecundity of their imagination. His- 
tory was ostensibly written for the glory of God and the ad- 
vancement of the interests of the Church ; hence the accuracy 
of fact, the assignment of motive, the judgment of results, 
were all determined from this one point of view. As a result, 
while much of our knowledge of the political history of the 
times comes from these monastic chronicles, and while some 
of them, such as those of the Venerable Bede for England, 
are most excellent and furnish the chief source of informa- 
tion for particular periods or people, most of them are so 
full of inaccuracies or misinterpretations that their statements 
must be rigidly verified by cross reference before being ac- 
cepted. However, in this respect, as in others, these monastic 
chronicles are probably superior to the few which emanated 
from the courts, for the monk was free for the most part from 
the motive of personal aggrandizement, being led astray 



Middle Ages 267 

by motives of a wholly different character ; namely, those of 
adding influence to the Church or reputation to its secular 
defenders. The importance, however, of such writings as 
the biography of Karl by Einhard and of the chronicles of 
Paulus Diaconus, subject as they are to many of these limita- 
tions, can be better estimated when we remember that it is 
said no records were kept at Karl's court because of the 
difficulty of finding persons who could write, and when we 
recall the character of the Carolingian myths that grew up 
to be accepted as history in the centuries following. Re- 
garded, then, as exact annals of the times, these chronicles 
are more important as sources of information concerning the 
institutions, manners, laws, and ideas of these ages. The 
list of these chronicles from the monasteries of Italy, of 
France, of Germany, of the Low Countries, of the British 
Isles, as well as of the minor European countries, is a long 
one in each case, and it is from these that our knowledge of 
these few centuries is largely reconstructed. 

The one other class of secular writings besides the chron- 
icles is that devoted to the discussion of the Seven Liberal 
Arts or of one of the component subjects. This needs to 
be discussed from another point of view. 

The Literary Heritage of Monasticism : The Seven Liberal 
Arts. — In outline the Middle Ages possessed all the knowl- 
edge of the few preceding and the few succeeding centuries ; 
in its content this knowledge was immeasurably more meager 
than that of either the preceding or the following era. It is 
desirable to note briefly the actual character and content of 
the secular learning that these Middle Ages preserved from 
complete barbarian neglect and destruction. 

The knowledge of the ancients possessed by the Middle 
Ages was far from being in its ancient form, for most of 
these writings had disappeared ; it was the knowledge of the 
ancients organized in a much abridged form by a few learned 
men chiefly of the fifth century. At this time the expression. 



268 History of Education 

The Seven Liberal Arts, as inclusive of all learning, came into 
vogue. Long before the fifth century, however, practically 
all these differentiations into subjects had occurred ; it was 
reserved for the ecclesiastical and symbolical tendencies of 
the Middle Ages to Hmit the sciences definitely to seven. 
As we have seen (pp. 136, 145), Plato had shown the distinction 
between what now came to be called the trivium, including 
grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic, and the quadrivimn, includ- 
ing arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. Varro, the 
most learned of the Romans, wrote, in the last pagan century, 
upon the liberal arts or studies which included all of these, 
together with architecture, medicine, and philosophy. In 
his treatise on education, Quintilian omitted from the liberal 
studies two of them, dialectic and arithmetic. St. Augustine 
(p. 242) wrote a treatise on two of these, and stated that he 
intended to write on five others. Writing in the same period, 
Capella completed his treatise on the seven in which all 
knowledge was presumed to be summarized. It is said by 
Professor Davidson, however, that the first actual use of the 
numeral seven in connection with the liberal arts was by Ra- 
banus Maurus in the ninth century. It is certain, however, 
that Cassiodorus, in the sixth century, and Alcuin, in the gen- 
eration preceding, had justified the study of secular subjects 
recognized by Rabanus Maurus, by identifying them with 
the seven pillars of the temple of wisdom. 

Martianus Capella, mentioned above, was one of the best 
representatives of the pagan culture in North Africa, and wrote 
(between 410-427 a.d.) a treatise entitled De Nuptiis Philo- 
logiae et Meixurii (The Marriage of Philology and Mercury), 
which, throughout the first half of the Middle Ages, was used 
more widely than any other book as a text of the ancient 
learning. The god Mercury desires to marry, and all the 
machinery of the pagan heaven is set in motion, first to deter- 
mine to whom, and then to celebrate the consummation of 
the marriage to the most learned maiden. Philology. The 



Middle Ages 269 

seven bridesmaids, or handmaidens, presented by Phoebus, 
are the Ars Grammatica, Ars Dialectica, Ars Rhetorica, Geo- 
metrica, Arithmetica, Astronomia, Harmonia, and each, as 
led forward in the ceremony, gives her parentage and ex- 
pounds to the assembly the substance of the art typified. 
These speeches contain in the driest of text-book form prac- 
tically all of the learning of the schools of these centuries. 
While Capella follows the order and arrangement of Varro, 
the substance of his works is borrowed from Cicero, Pliny, 
and Solinus, and from less important writers. 

Boethiiis (c. 480-524). Though no more prominent than 
Capella through the use of his books in the schools, Boethius 
was the most influential of all the learned men of the early 
Middle Ages. His chief service was to give to several suc- 
ceeding centuries the little knowledge of the Greek writers, 
especially of Plato and Aristotle, that they preserved. His 
purpose was to translate all the writings of these two philoso- 
phers into Latin ; he accomplished, however, only a small 
portion of his task, and of that but little was known during 
these centuries of darkness. While some of his briefer 
treatises gave impetus to the early scholastic movement, his 
more important works were not known until the twelfth 
century. He gave to the Middle Ages logic and ethics, or 
the basis of the entire dialectic element in their education, and 
also wrote on arithmetic, geometry, and music. These works 
of his were extensively used as text-books ; the one on music 
continued to be employed in some universities until well into 
the eighteenth century. His most widely read and influential 
work was the Consolations of Philosophy, written during his 
imprisonment just preceding his martyrdom by the Emperor 
Theodoric, whom he had served so long and well. Through 
this, — the most widely read secular work during all the 
Middle Ages, — the early half of this period received most of 
its ideas of the ancient philosophers and moralists. Though 
his writings afford practically no evidence of his avowal of a 



270 History of Education 

Christian faith, he was accepted by the mediaeval Church as 
a Christian, and thus his writings, the last product of pagan 
culture, were incorporated into the traditions of the Church. 

Cassiodorus (c. 490-585), the prime minister of at least four 
of the early barbarian emperors, or Gothic kings, and thus 
to them the interpreter of Latin culture as well as the 
exponent of their will to the conquered Romans, derives his 
chief importance from his political activities ; but the latter 
half of his long life was spent in a monastery which he himself 
had founded. Here he wrote for his monks commentaries, 
text-books, and an educational treatise containing a presen- 
tation of the seven liberal arts. For the world, he wrote his 
chronicles. Cassiodorus laid great emphasis upon study by 
the monks, urged them to give great attention to classical 
writings, directed that those without interest in letters should 
devote themselves to agriculture, but should read Cato, 
Columella, and other writers on agriculture. Much of his 
wealth he devoted to the collection of manuscripts, and 
through his influence the custom of copying these as a spe- 
cific part of the work of the monasteries became established. 
There is much basis for the view that the preservation of 
learning in the monasteries was due more to Cassiodorus 
than to Benedict. To the influence of Cassiodorus was largely 
due the dissemination of the custom, begun by one of his 
monks in 562 a.d., of dating from the Christian era. While 
the lives of Boethius and Cassiodorus, often described as the 
great twin-brethren, ran in similar channels, had similar 
objects and resulted in similar influences, yet the interest 
of the former was in the learning of the past, that of the 
latter in the learning that was to be in the future. Hence, 
while the former is most often described as the last of the 
Romans, the latter becomes the first of the new type of 
scholars who would devote all learning to the advancement 
of the interests of the Church. 

Isidore (c. 570-636), bishop of Seville, is the distinctive rep- 



Middle Ages 271 

resentative of the mediaeval learning. For his monks and 
clergy he composed an encyclopedia called Origines or 
Etymologies, which purported to be a summary of all knowl- 
edge worth knowing. Its general content is of interest as 
giving some idea of the learning of the times. Books I-III 
are on the liberal arts ; IV is on medicine and libraries ; V, on 
law and chronology; VI, on the books of the Bible; VII, on 
the heavenly and earthly hierarchies ; VIII, on the Church and 
on sects (sixty-eight in number) ; IX, on languages, peoples, 
etc.; X, on etymology; XI> on man; XII, on beasts and 
birds; XIII, the world and its parts; XIV, on physical geog- 
raphy ; XV, on political geography, public buildings, land 
surveying, and road making ; XVI, on stones and metals ; 
XVII, on agriculture and horticulture ; XVIII, on vocabulary 
of war, litigation, and public games ; XIX, on ships and 
houses, dress and personal adornment ; XX, on meats and 
drinks, tools and furniture. This seems a broad outline, 
capable of including a wide scope of learning ; but it must 
be remembered that many of these books are little more than 
catalogues of names ; that many are filled with odds and ends 
of information or error; that most of the contents is drawn 
from ancient authors, and this not at first hand ; that its dreari- 
ness is about as far from inspiration as possible ; and that, 
though including, as it did, all knowledge, it was yet in one 
volume. Though familiar with portions of the writings of 
the Greeks and Romans, Isidore forbade his monks to make 
any use of them whatever, and his book, through the excel- 
lency it possessed, partially prevented monks or students in 
general from going any farther. Such, indeed, was the gen- 
eral influence of this entire class of books, of which numerous 
others, by the few learned monks, followed in subsequent 
centuries. Some of these are to be noted under the next 
topic. 

Content of the Seven Liberal Aiis. ■ — • Another aspect of these 
intellectual possessions of the Middle Ages is to be consid- 



272 History of Education 

ered. One can hardly estimate the extent and the value of 
their learning until the content of these liberal arts is noted. 
Geometry, for example, always included the rudiments of 
geography ; astronomy included physics ; grammar included 
literature ; rhetoric included history. The actual extent to 
which the literature of the ancients found any place what- 
ever under grammar and rhetoric is a question to which very 
diverse answers are given and which is very difficult to decide. 
Isidore and Cassiodorus knew Greek and possessed a small 
library of Greek classics ; but during the following century 
the knowledge of the Greek language almost disappeared 
from Western Europe. It is believed that this knowledge 
was kept alive throughout the entire Middle Ages by the 
Celtic monks of the British Isles ; but, while a general knowl- 
edge of Greek was undoubtedly preserved there much longer 
than on the continent, it only in rare instances survived these 
centuries of the dark ages. Alcuin had some knowledge of the 
language, but little of the literature; though some of his pred- 
ecessors and successors had more. Even the indirect knowl- 
edge of Greek literature, through Latin translations or rather 
summaries or extended references by such writers as Boethius, 
was very meager, as, indeed, was that of Latin literature. 
Some of the writings of Virgil and of Cicero were well known. 
For the most part, however, monasteries possessed but very 
few of the works of classical authors. In the book list of the 
library of York, Alcuin mentions Boethius, Phny, Aristotle, 
Cicero, Virgil, Lactantius, Lucan, Donatus, Priscian, together 
with all of the important Church Fathers and several minor 
Latin authors. It is stated, moreover, that this catalogue 
shows the library at York in the eighth century to have been 
greater than that of any other in either France or England 
until as late as the twelfth century. The extensive use of 
the pagan literature in the monastic schools at St. Gall during 
the tenth and eleventh centuries has been mentioned (p. 256), 
and in many monastic records, the mention of their possession 



Middle Ages 273 

of certain classical works, usually those of Virgil, Ovid, and 
Cicero, is to be found frequently. 

Nevertheless, the general attitude toward this literature 
and its study was distinctly hostile.' Alcuin tells his pupils 
at Tours, " The sacred poets are sufficient for you ; there 
is no reason why you should sully your mind with the rank 
luxuriance of Virgil's verse." Showing a certain devotion 
to their studies on the part of some monks and the general 
attitude toward the classic writers, Peter the Venerable, 
head of the Clugny house (during the twelfth century), writes 
as follows : " See, now, without the study of Plato, without 
the disputations of the Academy, without the subtilties of 
Aristotle, without the teaching of philosophers, the place 
and the way of happiness are discovered. You run from 
school to school, and why are you laboring to teach and to 
be taught t Why is it that you are seeking through thousands 
of words, and multiplied labors, what you might, if you pleased, 
obtain in plain language with little labor } Why, vainly stu- 
dious, are you reciting with the comedians, lamenting with 
the tragedians, trifling with the metricians, deceiving with 
the poets, and deceived with the philosophers .'' Why is it 
that you are now taking so much trouble about what is not 
in fact philosophy but should rather (if I may say it without 
offense) be called foolishness t " 

One minor regulation in the rules of this same great house 
(Clugny) which dominated monasticism for two or three cen- 
turies possesses a similar significance. It was customary, as 
with all monastic organizations wherein silence was enjoined, 
to indicate one's wants by signs : thus the desire for a reli- 
gious book was expressed by extending the palms of the hands 
and then making a movement to imitate the turning of the 
leaves of a book ; but if a copy of one of the classical authors 
was wanted, the wish was indicated by imitating the motion 
of a dog scratching his ear, thus showing the proper disposi- 
tion toward the work of the unbelieving. Significant also is 



274 History of Education 

a very common attitude during the Middle Ages to ward Vergil, 
as the most prominent and most seductive of these ancient 
writers, wherein he is portrayed as a minion of the evil one, 
representative of all the temptations and wiles of this world. 
In fact, there arose during these centuries a very extensive 
Vergilian demonology that gives peculiar significance to the 
office of the poet as guide of the nether world, as portrayed 
by Dante at the close of this great historic period. 

THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING UNDER CHARLES THE 
GREAT (r. 771-814). — The one important aspect of educa- 
tional history from the seventh to the twelfth centuries that 
was not wholly monastic was the revival of learning under the 
Emperor Charlemagne. The task of this great emperor was 
to unify the work of the Teuton and that of the Roman, to ad- 
just the barbarian Frank to the Roman culture, to transfer to 
the German, who was hereafter to build upon it, the structure 
of modern society, the foundations of social organization^ 
Through the Holy Catholic Church the transfer of the reli- 
gious element had been made and the barbarians were now 
orthodox Christians ; through the Holy Roman Empire, estab- 
lished by Charles in 800, the political and legal structure of 
society was finally accepted by the Teuton. There remained 
to be added to these forms of external unity that internal 
unity which consisted in a community of ideas, of language, 
and of the cultural elements of social life. To bring about 
this union, this adoption of the Latin language, and the learn- 
ing of the Church and of such of the Roman culture as sur- 
vived, was the ambition of Charles. 

Naturally, he used as his instruments the only educational 
institutions of his times, — the monasteries. The old Roman 
schools, if they survived at all in the chief centers of provin- 
cial learning, were of the most rudimentary sort, and had been 
assimilated into the episcopal or monastic schools. But this 
movemenfinstigated by Charles was of more than monastic sig- 



Middle Ages 275 

nificance. It is practically the only one by a sovereign for the 
fostering of education among his people, between the last of 
the Roman emperors and the period of the universities. The 
work of Alfred of England and a few similarly inclined rulers 
was purely personal and local. 

*l(»vln 782 Charles called Alcuin from the cathedral school at 
York to the Continent, to assist him in his attempt to revive 
an interest in learning. For a century or more preceding 
this time Irish monks had been largely instrumental in mis- 
sionary and educational activities on the Continent, and the 
chaplains of the court of the Merovingian kings had in a way 
attempted to foster learning. But by Alcuin this school of 
the palace was developed into a definite institution, patron- 
ized by Charles himself, by other members of the royal family, 
and by the youth of the nobility. From it Charles drew many 
of his assistants in the administration of his great empire. 
While the work of the school was very meager in its literary 
character, yet its importance was great from the influence 
which it exerted as an example. In j'^'j Charles issued his 
capitulary upon schools, which has been accounted by some, 
though in a somewhat figurative sense we believe, as the 
foundations of modern education, — " the charter of modern 
thought." It commanded the study of letters both by the 
clergy and by the monks ; by the former, since it had come 
to his notice that great numbers could not even read, and 
hence simply repeated the church services by rote, and since 
many of the educated showed through their correspondence 
with him that their education was most faulty ; by the monks, 
that there might again be " a regular manner of life and one 
conformable to holy religion." Two years later, the first 
capitulary not having produced the desired effect, he issued 
another, prescribing in greater detail the study appropriate to 
the monks and the clergy. Several capitularies of the same 
year are devoted to raising the standard of character of the 
clergy, both morally and intellectually, and one directs the 



276 History of Education 

bishops that clerics should be sought for, not only from 
among the*Servile class, but also from among the sons of free- 
men. One of these (that of 789) directs that " every monas- 
tery and every abbey have its school, where boys may be 
taught the Psalms, the system of musical notation, singing, 
arithmetic, grammar ; and let the books which are given 
them be free from faults, and let care be taken that the boys 
do not spoil them either when reading or writing." Karl's 
officials, the niissi dominici, were empowered to visit all mon- 
asteries, to enforce the provisions of these edicts, and to see 
that the monks lived according to their rules. At least in 
one bishopric, that of Orleans, there was an attempt to carry 
out similar provisions in regard to the parish churches, and 
thus to form a system of elementary schools. This gives 
basis to the extravagant claim that elementary education 
for the lower classes was more general in France in the 
eighth century than in the early half of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. On the other hand. Gibbon summarizes the whole 
movement by saying that " the emperor strove to acquire the 
practice of writing, which every peasant now acquires in his 
infancy." That rapid advances in learning were made by 
the clergy and the monks during Karl's time is evident; that 
these efforts were not altogether satisfactory even to Alcuin 
is evidenced by his great desire to withdraw from the court 
on account of the corrupt life of the members and the rude, 
almost barbarian, character of society, whose constant occupa- 
tion was warfare. In 794 this desire culminated in the with- 
drawal of Alcuin to the abbacy of the monastery at Tours. 
Meanwhile, the educational movement furthered from this 
and other monasteries, as well as from the court, continued 
to thrive under difficulties. Of quite as great importance as 
the edicts of Karl himself, was one by the successor of Karl, 
issued in 817. This reactionary edict restricted the work of 
monastic schools to those boys who were destined for the 
monastic life {oblati). 



^K. 



Middle Ages 277 



Icuin (735-804), who, on account of his influence upon 
Karl, as seen through these various edicts, is generally re- 
garded as the most important educator during the first half 
of the Middle Ages, deserves some further notice. The posi- 
tion which Karl, in 794, bestowed upon Alcuin was the most 
important ecclesiastical office in France. The monastery of 
Tours was the richest in France, its possessions were almost 
a department in extent, and it was offered as a reproach to 
Alcuin that he was master of twenty thousand slaves. This 
monastery Alcuin made the center of learning in France as 
well as the center of influence in the Church. To him 
flocked the youth desirous of learning, and from the monas- 
tery went out an ever increasing stream of influence in the 
work of his pupils and disciples found in numerous monas- 
teries throughout the land. Alcuin's ideas of education grew 
rather more restricted than broader; he rejected the study of 
the classical literature, to which as a youth he himself had 
been addicted ; emphasized the ascetic aspect of the monastic 
training ; and limited his pupils and the monasteries in general 
to the study of the sacred writings. On the other hand, while 
emphasizing the importance of the study of the liberal arts, 
within these limits, he took pains to build up a great library 
at Tours, sending copyists to England for this purpose, and 
encouraged a like activity and interest in the other monas- 
teries. Though his learning was probably as great as that of 
any one of his century, yet his scholarship was limited. His 
great service was to bring learning to the support of the 
Church, and with Karl to demonstrate that intellectual train- 
ing was quite as essential to the welfare of society as efforts at 
purely religious and moral betterment. He writes : " Despise 
not human sciences [the liberal arts], but make of them a 
foundation ; so teach children grammar and the doctrines of 
philosophy that, ascending the steps of wisdom, they may 
reach the summit, which is evangelical perfection, and while 
advancing in years they may also increase the treasures of 



lyS History of Education 

wisdom." Thus following Cassiodorus, with whose writings 
he was familiar, and from whom he borrowed in his own 
writings on the liberal arts, he identifies these latter with the 
seven pillars of the temple of wisdom and thus gives this 
study Biblical sanction. He himself wrote on Grammar, on 
RJieto7nc, on Dialetic, on AritJnnetic, and on TJie Seven Lib- 
eral Arts. The treatises on the special subjects are in the 
catechetical form, — that of question and answer, — so famil- 
iar for centuries to come. Some of them are almost puerile 
in character. The arithmetic consists of fifty-three proposi- 
tions, of which forty-five are in simple reckoning. Many are 
in arithmetical and geometrical proportion, with little or no 
idea of principles involved. Several are trivial catch ques- 
tions of modern almanac variety, such as '* After a farmer has 
turned thrice at each end of the field, how many furrows has 
he drawn } " Alcuin's reputation as a scholar depended 
upon his several works on grammar. 

Rabanus Maurus (776-856) was the ablest and most noted 
pupil of Alcuin. As the abbot of Fulda, the first and most 
important monastery and school in North Germany, he ex- 
erted an influence in this region similar to that of Alcuin in 
Frankland. His chief work was an encyclopedia similar to 
that of Isidore, upon which it was founded. Like Alcuin, 
he had some slight knowledge of Greek, but being of more 
virile mind his chief interest was in dialectic instead of in 
grammar. Dialectic he terms the science of sciences, which 
teaches us how to teach and how to learn. Another impor- 
tant work upon The Education of the Clergy contains a treatise 
on the seven liberal arts and hence covers the entire field of 
education of his day. 

Joannes Scotus Erigena, or John the Scot (c. 8io-c. 875), 
the most noted successor of Alcuin in the palace school, 
was called by Charles the Bald, about 845, from the British 
Isles as Alcuin had been by Karl. Of greater scholarship 
than either Alcuin or Rabanus, he introduced the study of 



Middle Ages 279 

the Greek language and brought a wider knowledge of the 
ancient learning, and especially of the Greek fathers, than 
had hitherto been found among the Teutons. With a much 
more liberal attitude toward the pagan authors, with whom 
he had a fairly wide acquaintance, he made the work of Ca- 
pella the chief text in secular learning in the monasteries. 
Of more vigorous mind than any of his predecessors, he laid 
more emphasis upon the study of dialectic than had any be- 
fore him, and being somewhat heretical in his views, he stimu- 
lated an unprecedented activity in theological discussion. 
With John begins the long conflict between realism and 
nominalism, though there followed what might be termed 
an intellectual interregnum of more than a century. The 
work and influence of Rabanus Maurus and John Scotus lead 
directly to the great revival of intellectual interest in the 
later eleventh and the twelfth century, which will be dis- 
cussed under scholasticism. 

§ 3. MYSTICISM. EDUCATION AS A SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE 

NATimE^OF^ MYSTI£ISM other type of education 

is of importance, in that it supplements the other aspects of 
the disciplinary conception of education. Since practically all 
mediaeval mystics were monks, as far as its personnel is con- 
cerned, this type of education bears a close relationship to the 
monastic. Since, through its very nature, mysticism can 
have influence upon but few people, its importance is far 
greater in the history of philosophy and of religion than in 
that of education. While its presentation need concern us 
but briefly, it is desirable to have at least a general conception 
of its meaning in order to appreciate the intellectual life and 
the conception of education prevailing in the Middle Ages. 

As a type of life, mysticism differed from the ordinary 
unreflective life religious or secular, from monasticism the 
organized religious life, and from scholasticism the organized 



28o History of Edtication 

intellectual life ; it possessed an education peculiar to itself. 
For an age such as ours, educated from the most realistic point 
of view, it is all but imjDossible to do justice to the tenets of 
mysticism ; it is impossible for one not sympathizing with these 
views to understand their full meaning ; it is probably impos- 
sible for any one adequately to define this type of thought in 
simple terms. Mysticism was the belief that the aim of life 
was to attain to perfection of the soul, to the highest knowl- 
edge, and to spiritual satisfaction by means of appropriate train- 
ing. This was to be accomplished through the elimination of 
all that comes through the senses, by the withdrawal of the 
mind within itself, and through the identification, in the world 
of spirit, of the individual with the infinite reality or whole. 
Mysticism is defined by a modern scientific critic as " a state of 
mind in which the subject imagines that he perceives or divines 
unknown and inexplicable relations among phenomena, dis- 
cerns in things, hints at mysteries, and regards them as symbols 
by which a dark power seeks to unveil, or to indicate, all sorts of 
marvels." A more sympathetic way of stating the same idea 
is that " mysticism is the consciousness that everything that we 
experience is an element, and only an element in fact ; i.e. that 
in being what it is, it is symbolic of something more." Philo- 
sophically, mysticism has been defined as " the filling of the 
consciousness with a content (feeling, thought, desire) by an 
involuntary emergence of the same out of the unconscious." 
From the religious point of view, " Mysticism is the tendency 
to approach the Absolute morally, and by means of symbols." 
There is both a philosophical and a religious element in 
mysticism : philosophically, it is an attempt of the finite mind 
to understand the ultimate nature of things, to comprehend the 
divine essence or the spirit of God as it pervades and rules all 
matter; religiously, it is the effort to come into actual and 
immediate communion with the Deity. To the mystic, 
"God ceases to be an object and becomes an experience." 
By means of ecstatic experiences the mystic seeks to become 



Middle Ages 28) 

^^ a partaker of the divine nature." As a religion, it be- 
comes the most intense and extreme of soul experiences ; as 
a philosophy, the most abstract and idealistic, while at the 
same time possessing a strong rationalistic bent ; as an edu- 
cation, it becomes the most extreme, though the least widely 
influential, type of the disciplinary conception. 

THE ORIGIN OF MYSTICISM can affect its educational 
bearing but slightly, so needs but to be suggested here. From 
the nature of mysticism, as already described, it will be seen 
that it is not a definite type, but rather a belief in various 
forms among different people and at different times. Less 
natural to the religion and the life of the West than to that of 
the East, it is a feature essential to both the religions and 
the philosophy of the latter. Both to the Buddhist and the 
Brahman, the phenomenal world is an unreality, and the mys- 
tical absorption of the soul with the divine the highest goal. 
To a less extent, in both the Persian and the Mohammedan 
religion mysticism finds a place. The very term comes from 
the mysteries of the Greek religion, from which the idea of 
shutting in things not to be revealed was carried over to the 
idea of shutting out all things of the sense in order that 
the revelation might be given. In Plato the idea of rising to 
the infinite through a series of related phenomenal existences, 
and the finding in this same phenomenal world a symbol or 
type of the spiritual, gave a basis for the belief of those who 
would seek reality in this world of ideas by fleeing from the 
world of phenomena. In the writings of St. John and St. 
Paul, relating to Christian doctrine and Greek philosophy, 
and full of the technical terms of the Greek mysteries, the 
Christian mystics found the basis for their beliefs. In the 
Alexandrian schools of Philo the Jew, and later in the works 
of the early Church Fathers, similar interpretations are found. 
Clement made knowledge — knowledge similar to the Socratic 
type, "the thinking of holy things" — greater than faith, 



282 History of Education 

This knowledge, though aided by intellectual training, was 
in itself a contemplation. Christianity was looked upon as of 
two types : the popular irrational faith and the knowledge 
or spiritual Christianity gained through wisdom. Their re- 
semblance to the dominant heresy of the times — Gnosticism 
— rendered these teachings somewhat dangerous. In fact, 
throughout the Middle Ages mysticism showed a tendency 
toward rationalism, certainly toward a greater freedom of 
thought, and hence toward heresy. 

The mediaeval Christians drew their mysticism directly 
from Plotinus and the Neoplatonic philosophy of the later 
Alexandrian schools and from Dionysius, who, though writ- 
ing in the late fifth or early sixth century, was supposed to 
have been a disciple of St. Paul. John Scotus (p. 278) re- 
vived their teachings. In the eleventh century a new type 
of mysticism sprang up under the leadership of the monks of 
St. Victor, distinguished from the former type by its attempt 
to harmonize mystical thought with scholastic formalism and 
terminology. 

While the type of education represented by the mystic was 
not of general application, it is the freest from the restraints of 
institutional authority ; it lays peculiar stress upon reason in 
its development of the contemplative mind and gives a com- 
pleteness and a peculiar interpretation to the mediaeval idea 
of disciplinary education. 

THE EDUCATION OF THE MYSTICS was based upon a 
psychology formulated largely by Plotinus. These peculiar 
doctrines appear not only in the writings of Christian mystics, 
but color most of the treatises on the soul written through- 
out the Middle Ages by numerous Churchmen, both mystics 
and Schoolmen. In these treatises their psychological ideas 
are found. The soul is immaterial and immortal because it 
belongs to the world of reality, that is, of ideas or spirits. 
Its nature is threefold : the lowest, or animal part is bound 



Middle Ages 285 

up with the body ; the logical, or reasoning part of the soul 
is its peculiarly human aspect ; the third, the superhuman, 
or spiritual part is that by which or in which man is identified 
with the highest intelligence, that is, the divine. Hence there 
are three excellencies of the soul ; three stages of experience. 

The higher stages are reached by a withdrawal from the 
world of action and of sense into the world of thought. The 
world of action is but the shadow of the world of thought ; 
hence the latter alone is reality. Action is the shadow of 
contemplation. " Action is coarsened thought," as a modern 
writer formulates it. God, reality, as transcendent and infi- 
nite, is to be approached and apprehended by analysis and 
abstraction, through thought, through the shutting out of all 
impressions of sense and a sinking into one's thought-self. 
" The way to God is to descend into one's self," said Hugo St. 
Victor ; and Richard of the same school puts the same thought 
in similar words, " If thou wishest to search out the deep 
things of God, search out the depths of thine own nature." 

After the development of scholasticism the stages of mys- 
tical education were formulated somewhat more definitely. 
The first step was that of purification, or purgation, similar 
to Aristotle's idea of purgative education and to the asceti- 
cism of the monks. All obstacles to the vision of the divine, 
consequently all impressions of sense, all material and worldly 
interests, were to be eliminated. In this connection an elab- 
orate ethical system was'developed, often including the social 
virtues as well as the discipline of self. The second stage 
was the illumination of life ; as the first stage was a struggle 
with the outer life, so this was a struggle with the inner life. 
Good works are now performed spontaneously and need no 
thought. The whole nature, will, intellect, emotions, was to 
be concentrated upon religious ideas, that is, spent in devo- 
tion. The third stage, the unitive or contemplative life, was 
the goal of the mystic, and was to be reached by no other. 
This life was a continual approximation to the life of God, 



284 History of Education 

m which man beheld the divine and was assimilated in it. 
In his Eruditionis Didascalicae, probably the most direct and 
important educational treatise by a mystic, Hugo St. Victor 
indicates these three stages from the educational point of 
view as cogitation, meditation, contemplation. Above the 
ordinary unreflective life, and separated from it by a gulf, 
comes the life of thought, of cogitation, of Aristotelian 
analysis. Separated from this by a similar distance is the 
life of meditation, approximating the Platonic life of con- 
templation, and resulting in the knowledge of ideas through 
dialectics. Above this again, now Christianized and rendered 
more spiritual, is the stage of contemplation, wherein the 
vision of the divine is vouchsafed to the Christian mystic, and 
to him alone. It is not to be wondered that in comprehend- 
ing or in presenting this conception of life and its appropriate 
education there arises some difficulty. 

Aside from this philosophical mysticism there was a prac- 
tical type, very similar in its stages, but attainable by the 
unlettered through devotion. The importance of philosophi- 
cal and intellectual training is replaced by the corresponding 
emphasis placed upon symbolism, which was of minor im- 
portance in the more rationalistic mysticism. While it 
was this latter that was of greatest importance during the 
Middle Ages, it is only the symbolic mysticism, that which 
finds in each material entity a portion of the divine and a 
symbol of it all, that has any considerable influence upon 
modern education. Even then, as it appears in the teachings 
of Froebel (see Chapter XI), it has little connection with the 
disciplinary conception of education. 

§ 4. CHIVALRY. EDUCATION AS A SOCIAL DISCIPLINE 

ORIGIN AND NATURE OF CHIVALRY. — Chivalry repre- 
sents the organization within secular society of those recog- 
nizing the highest social ideals and attempting to realize them 



Middle Ages 285 

through definitely estabhshed forms and customs. Chivalry 
was to the secular life what monasticism was to the religious 
life. It did not necessarily include all of the nobility, but 
only those who definitely accepted the highest obligations 
of a social character, sanctioned, as these obligations were, 
by the Church. Knighthood and the chivalric character 
were not inherited as nobility was. They were not the 
gift of birth, though only the free born and those who 
possessed some land, and who consequently could command 
the support of some subordinates, could hope to attain to its 
distinctive characteristics. While toward the close of the 
chivalric period knighthood was sometimes conferred in 
youth, even in infancy in the case of the royal family, for 
the most part it could not be attained before the age of 
twenty-one and then only after a long period of training, 
through which the knightly traits of character were devel- 
oped, and after som.e deeds of daring that revealed the most 
striking of these. As the institution of chivalry represents 
the education which secular society received, so this training 
formed the only education of the members of the nobility. 
Like all education during the Middle Ages, this education was 
a discipline, both for the individual and the social class, but 
one in which the intellectual element was even slighter than 
that in monasticism or mysticism. Says Cornish: "The con- 
secration of the Teutonic soldier to a rule of life, a brotherhood 
and equality of noble service, a discipline of lifelong obedi- 
ence, a sense of personal honor and rectitude, though inferior 
to the Roman conception of civic virtue, was an education 
of those who bore rule in the world, and made them more 
worthy of the position which they had won and maintained 
by force, than if they had never bowed to the yoke of the 
Church and learnt from her teaching the lesson of noblesse 
obliged 

The origin of chivalry is found in the character and cus- 
toms of the Teutons, influenced as they were by the structure 



286 History of Edtication 

of Roman society, upon which they built modern institutions, 
and by the Christian Church, which directed their energies 
into particular channels and discovered to them in many of 
the teachings of Christianity a bond of sympathy between 
the Church and the worthier traits of character of the bar- 
barians. In the centuries between the final overthrow of 
Roman society and the definite organization of society upon 
the feudal system in the ninth and tenth centuries, cavalry 
had come to be the dominant military force, and every king, 
baron, lord, or freeman of estate who traveled or warred on 
horseback, and hence had subordinates to serve him, was a 
knight. Knighthood and feudalism were coextensive and in 
many features identical, for their origin was similar. Chivalry, 
however, as it was organized, and in the form in which it 
dominated from the opening of the Crusades to the sixteenth 
century, was a knighthood within a knighthood, an organized 
life recognizing definite ideals and fules and possessing a 
special training that represented all the education there was 
for the ruling classes until the formation of definite schools 
of another character in the early Renaissance movement of 
the fifteenth century. 

THE IDEALS OF CHIVALRY are those ever since accepted 
as the ideal of " a gentleman." This is a very different con- 
ception of personal virtue from that of classical society, and 
involves some radical modifications of the elements of the early 
Christian ideal. In speaking of the character of the leader 
of the first Crusade, Cornish describes the knightly character 
that in its weakness and its strength is not much less typical 
of the entire chivalric period than of the earlier century: 
" We observe in them [the knights] reckless courage, per- 
sonal pride, and self-respect, courteous observance of the word 
of honor, if plighted according to certain forms, disregard of 
all personal advantage except military glory : and, on the 
other hand, savage ferocity, deliberate cruelty, anger indulged 



Middle Ages 28 y 

m almost to the point of madness, extravagant display, child 
ish wastefulness, want of military discipline, want of good 
faith alike to Christians and infidels." Under chivalry these 
ideals, constituting the character of a gentleman, were very 
much more definitely formulated than in modern ages. As 
thus definitely organized, the knight summed up all duties of 
life, under his obligations to God, to his lord, and to his lady. 
In one respect chivalry performed for secular life a service 
identical with that performed by monasticism for the religious 
life : it dignified the idea of service and held up to a rude and 
violent people, accustomed both to resent any restriction 
upon their liberty of action and to indulge in a most unre- 
strained manner temper and anger, the ideal of obedience to 
rule and to personal command. While this organization of 
society had its dem_erits as well and led to or sanctioned a 
contempt for inferiors and a regulation rather than an eradica- 
tion of evil, it is difftcult to overestimate its value in amelio- 
rating the crudities and the barbarities of the life of the times 
through the new attitude toward service and obedience. 
This influence was probably the greatest or, at least, the 
most immediate that Christianity could exert upon the virile 
barbarism of the Teutons, v And chivalry is largely, though 
indirectly, the result of the influence of the Church. Especially 
in the Crusades, — and with this movement chivalry first 
became definitely organized, — the Church consecrated the 
dominant militant interests and characteristics of the Teuton 
and secured their devotion to its interests. \This ideal of a 
life of service substituted for one of lawless gratification, if it 
did not modify radically the character of their hfe, constituted 
a complete change in the direction and motive of their 
education. , 

\ Reverence for superiors, a consideration for inferiors, a 
gentleness toward all weak and defenseless, a courtesy 
toward all women, were further ideals or amplifications of the 
ideal of service and obedience: A greater gentleness of 



288 History of Education 

manner, of consideration for others in deed and speech, in 
fact, a general amelioration of manners followed throughout 
all classes of society. While it is true that this courtesy and 
consideration were enforced by the constant threat of mortal 
combat if violated, and that this was a regulation of evils 
that sanctioned the violence of previous times, yet it was a 
great advance to have definite ideals of social conduct recog- 
nized by these classes of society.x. Such recognition implied 
a long course of training, a definite education upon the part 
of those professing to follow this new type of life. 

The ideal of courage or bravery required no specific train- 
ing to secure its development, but the use of arms necessary 
to follow this life did. The ideal of gallantry or courtesy in 
itself probably needed no formal instruction that it might be 
produced ; but chivalric gallantry, the proper courtesy and 
demeanor in company, did require a prolonged training, for 
its forms were many, and intricate and the entire chivalric 
life was one of most punctilious formal observance. The 
general ideals of chivalry, its effect upon society and the 
individual, and, by inference, the character of education 
demanded are indicated in this summary from Cornish : 
^-"Chivalry taught the world the duty of noble service 
/^ willingly rendered. It upheld courage and enterprise in 
obedience to rule, it consecrated military prowess to the serv- 
ice of the Church, glorified the virtues of liberality, good 
faith, unselfishness, and courtesy, and, above all, courtesy to 
women. Against these may be set the vices of pride, love of 
bloodshed, contempt of inferiors, and loose manners. Chiv- 
alry was an imperfect discipline, but it was a discipline, and 
one fit for the times." 

Our concern is in the organization of this discipline into 
an educational scheme, such as furnished to the free and 
especially to the upper classes in society their only organized 
education from the seventh to the fifteenth or even sixteenth 
century. 



Middle Ages 289 

THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF CHIVALRY. — The 

education of a knight was divided into two distinct periods : 
that of the page, which covered approximately the period from 
the seventh to tlie fourteenth year, and that of the squire, 
which covered approximately the period from the fourteenth 
to the twenty-first year. Every feudal lord, of every rank, 
and the more prominent clerics as well, maintained a court 
that was attended by the sons and frequently by the daughters 
of the subordinate gentry of his realm. The greater gentry 
usually sent their sons to the court of the king or sometimes 
to that of one of their peers. Oftentimes the sons of kings 
served in their own home. \ But it was the usual custom for 
all ranks of chivalry, a custom probably growing out of the 
earlier custom of taking hostages, to send their children from 
home. In some instances, though very rarely, schools were 
established, y'' For the most part the training was given 
through a definitely organized household or court service. 
Obedience and service were thus dignified by having the 
noblest born conform to the same ideals. For during this 
training sons of knights even thus waited upon the table and 
performed similar menial offices. By the same process, 
gentleness and consideration were developed in those in 
authority, since they had also served, and since their serv- 
ants, those in personal charge of the table, of the horses, the 
dogs, the hawks, the bed chamber, the stables, etc., were all 
persons of rank. 

The page began with simple service about the castle, 
especially in attendance upon the ladies. As he grew older 
he waited upon the table. This duty he continued to perform 
as a squire ; and in addition to these a great variety of per- 
sonal services to his lord. All culminated in the office of 
" squire of the body," who was the immediate personal attend- 
ant upon his lord in battle and in tournament. 

The page and the squire were supposed to learn "the 
rudiments of love, of war, and of religion." The "rudiments 
u 



290 History of Education 

of love " were courtesy, kindliness, gentleness, pleasant 
demeanor, generosity, the knowledge of the very elaborate 
formalities of conduct, good manners, pleasant, even stilted, 
speech, and the ability to turn a rhyme. Love was to protect 
the youth from the evils of anger, envy, sloth, gluttony, and 
excesses of all kinds. The rudiments of love were to be 
acquired through service to the ladies and through the 
teachings of the minstrels. It often happened that to these 
things the squire added the ability to play the harp and to 
sing. The squire had in particular to devote himself to the 
service and the amusement of the ladies of the court. He 
participated in their hunting and hawking expeditions, in the 
entertainment of the court, perhaps in the reading of chiv- 
alric literature and in the game of chess. Chaucer thus 
describes the squire : — 

" Syngynge he was or floytynge [playing] , al the day ; 
He was as fressh as is the month e of May. 
Short was his gowne, with sieves longe and wyde. 
Wei koude he sitte on hors and fau'e ryde ; 
He koude songes make and wel endite, 
Juste and eek daunce and weel purtreye and write. 
So hoote he lovede that by nyghtertale 
He slepte namoore than dooth a nyghtyngale ; 
Curteis he was, lowely and servysable, 
And carf biforn his fader at the table." 

The ability to just, spoken of by Chaucer, was the chief of 
the rudiments of war. The justing in the tournament was 
the chief preparation for war ; in time it became a substitute. 
For this the youth was trained from his earliest years in the 
ability to ride, to handle the shield, to wield the sword, to tilt 
with the lance, to cast the javelin, to exercise in armior, - — in 
fact, in every martial exercise. Tilting at a revolving target, 
either in boats or on horseback, was much practiced. Hunt- 
ing and hawking furnished training for warfare as well as the 
chief amusements of the nobility. The latter, which was 



Middle Ages 291 

chiefly the hunting of water fowl, was the pecuhar privilege 
of the nobility. This training in the rudiments of war de- 
veloped an ability to withstand all hardships of life in the 
open air, an indifference to pain, an ability to withstand hun- 
ger and fatigue. 

As the period for knighting drew nigh the religious aspects 
of chivalry were emphasized. Throughout the ceremony, 
which usually required some weeks of religious service, the 
Church attached the nobility to it and sanctioned and directed 
their warlike activities. The prospective knight must go 
through cerernonies of purification, his sword was blessed by 
a priest, and in the ceremony, frequently if not usually held 
in a church, he swore '* to defend the Church, to attack the 
wicked, to respect the priesthood, to protect women and the 
poor, to preserve the country in tranquillity, and to shed his 
blood in behalf of his brethren." 

In all of this training there is little of the intellectual. In 
the earlier centuries of chivalry it was'an effeminacy to know 
how to write ;''in the later centuries the knowledge of read- 
ing and writing both among men and women of the upper 
classes was quite common. The knowledge of the French 
language — the language of chivalry — was quite necessary. 
This study of French and the song and music of the min- 
strels were the only literary elements in this type of educa- 
tion. However, there were occasional instances of more 
marked attainments. X 
^ One of the early English texts gives this description of 
the aim of chivalric education : " To lerne them [the future 
knights] to ryde clenely and surely ; to draw them also to 
justes ; to lerne were their harenys ; to haue all courtesy in 
wordes, dedes, and degrees ; dilygently to kepe them in rules 
of goyinges and sittinges after they be of honor. Moreover 
to teche them soundry languages and othyr lernyings ver- 
tuous, to harpe, to pype, sing and daunce." ^ 

1 Furnival, Ediicatioii in Eaj-ly England, p. ii. 



292 History of Education 



§ 5. SCHOLASTICISM. EDUCATION AS AN INTELLECTUAL 
DISCIPLINE 

NATURE OF SCHOLASTICISM. — Scholasticism is the 
term given to the type of intellectual life, and hence of 
education, that prevailed from the eleventh to the fifteenth 
centuries inclusive ; that was largely responsible for the 
origin of universities, and represented the work of these 
institutions for three or four centuries ; that produced a vast 
literature ; and that possessed very distinct characteristics of 
its own which mark it off from modern intellectual life. Defi- 
nite though narrow in its aim, restricted in its subject-matter, 
keen and subtle in its method, fruitful in its outcome in the 
development of certain mental traits and abilities, extremely 
limited in its social influences, scholasticism was a type of 
intellectual life that has been as grossly abused and as much 
underestimated during the centuries following its overthrow 
by the Renaissance movement of the sixteenth century, as it 
was overvalued by its own devotees. Scholasticism is not 
characterized by any common group of principles or beliefs, 
but is rather a peculiar method or type of intellectual activity; 
consequently it is very difficult to give any accurate definition 
of the term. Most attempted definitions merely give descrip- 
tions of its external features, its methods, its subject-matter, 
or of the time limits within which it prevailed. Without 
attempting a further definition, let us consider the purpose, 
the content, the form, the method, the defects, the objections 
to scholasticism, and its results from the educational point of 
view. 

THE PURPOSE OF SCHOLASTIC THOUGHT. — The 

dominant characteristic of the intellectual life of the early 
half of the Middle Ages was the attitude of unquestioned 
obedience to authority ; of receptivity to all doctrines, state- 
ments or incidents sanctioned by the Church ; of dependence 



Middle Ages 293 

upon formal truths dogmatically established ; of an antago- 
nism to any state of doubt or of questioning or of inquiry 
as wrong and sinful in itself. By the eleventh century a new 
attitude was necessary. Heretical views had crept in from 
the East, and had to be met by argument as well as by force ; 
a few men of exceptional learning for the times, especially 
John Scotus of the ninth century, had suggested many ques- 
tions that could not be ignored ; the study of dialectic, which 
had received new and unprecedented emphasis from the time 
of Rabanus Maurus, had stimulated an interest in intellec- 
tual activity and in the logical formulation and statement of 
religious beliefs ; and the Crusade movement, with its break- 
ing down of the isolation and the rusticity of the people of 
the West through their contact with the variety of beliefs in 
the East — all these stimulated new intellectual interests and 
made it necessary to state religious beliefs in new forms. 
The purpose of scholasticism was to bring reason to the sup- 
port of faith ; to strengthen the religious life and the Church 
by the development of intellectual -power, and by silencing, 
through argument, all doubts, all questionings, all heresy. 
Faith was yet superior to and anterior to reason. The credo 
ut intellega^n (" I believe in order that I may understand ") 
of Anselm was the dominant principle throughout the period. 
But at the same time it was the belief that there was no con- 
flict between reason and faith, and it was the constant pur- 
pose to show this harmony between reason, with its newly 
given liberty, and the doctrines so long accepted by the 
Church. Church doctrines had long been formulated ; they 
were now to be analyzed, defined, systematized. As in the 
past, synods had declared that the sun turned round the earth, 
had determined the exact way in which the painter should 
represent the beard and the robes of a saint, so now in a 
similarly minute manner authority prescribed the beliefs of 
the people. It was necessary that authority should be organ- 
ized and present a systematic completeness. This was the 



294 History of Education 

purpose of scholasticism in its broader meaning Since 
scholasticism includes the questionings raised by reason as 
well as the refutation of these doubts, or the solution of these 
problems, the entire period may be looked upon as a conflict 
of reason with authority ; and scholasticism is often so de- 
fined. But the dominant attitude was not one of protest but 
of conciliation. 

Educationally, the purpose of scholasticism was included 
within this broad purpose. Scholastic training aimed to de- 
velop the power of thus formulating behefs into logical sys- 
tem, of presenting and defending such logical statements of 
beliefs against all arguments that might be brought against 
them, without at the same time developing an attitude of 
mind that would be critical of the fundamental principles 
already established by authority. In other words, relying 
upon authority it sought to avoid developing the attitude of 
inquiry, of hostility to the acceptance of any statement with- 
out a preliminary inquiry into its rational validity ; it did not 
desire to stimulate the attitude of honest doubt, which in 
modern educational thought would be considered the only 
proper preparation of the intellectual soil for such sowing 
of the seeds of truth as promised fruitful returns. In a more 
general way the aim of scholastic education was to systema- 
tize knowledge, to give it scientific form. But to the scholastic 
mind knowledge was primarily of a theological and philosophi- 
cal, that is, metaphysical character and the scientific form 
valued was that of deductive logic. In this, the aim of scholastic 
education was brilliantly successful; for there were elaborated 
most exhaustive systems of knowledge, compassing the whole 
range of their interest in a most effective manner, and in some 
cases of such profundity that these systems have few rivals 
in more modern times and yet serve as the basis and content 
of the intellectual fife of large portions of modern society. 

The third aspect of the educational purpose of scholasti- 
cism was, then, to give to the individual a mastery of this 



Middle Ages 295 

systematized knowledge, now reduced to propositions and 
syllogisms all united into a logical whole, 

THE CONTENT OF SCHOLASTICISM. — From the previous 
statement of the purpose of scholasticism, it follows that the 
content expressing the realization of this purpose was the 
complete fusion of theological and philosophical material. 
It constituted the complete reduction of religious thought to 
logical form. All other phases of knowledge were subsumed 
under these, for secular interests as such had no standing. 
Since this organization was furnished entirely by the logical 
writings of Aristotle, or by such portions of them as were 
known, scholasticism is often defined as the union of the 
Christian- beliefs and the Aristotelian logic. All legitimate 
knowledge had to be sanctioned by religion, or the Church ; 
it had to be given its place in the logical system of scholastic 
thought and reduced to the appropriate logical form. To do 
this was the task of the Schoolmen. 

The primary interests of the times were in the great doc- 
trines of the Church concerning justification, predestination, 
the Trinity, the freedom of the will, the doctrine of the eucha- 
rist, etc. To give these and similar doctrines their proper 
philosophical statement, to reduce all to a harmonized system, 
to present them. v/ 1th answers to all objections to the ortho- 
dox view and with refutations of all unorthodox interpreta- 
tions, constituted the content of scholastic literature. Now 
it happened that at the same period in which circumstances 
emphasized the necessity of supporting by reason the beliefs 
of the Church, a certain superficial knowledge of the funda- 
mental philosophical problems discussed by Plato and Aris- 
totle became prevalent ; hence, in the very nature of the 
problem, the interpretation of the orthodox views came to 
depend upon the acceptance of some such view as that of 
Plato, and the heretical theological views became bound up 
with a metaphysical doctrine contradictory to that of Plato. 



296 History of Education 

The early Schoolmen were not aware of the conflict between 
the views of the two great masters concerning the theory of 
knowledge, or at least with the general outhne of Aristotle's 
view, for they possessed and were guided only by those por- 
tions of Aristotle's writings that related to the logical formu- 
lation of thought, more specifically the Categories of the 
Organon. Plato's views that ideas, concepts, universals, 
constituted the only reality, became accepted by the orthodox 
Schoolmen under the name of realism. By the Schoolmen 
and the Church such general concepts were regarded as the 
archetvpes in the Divine reason, and the various phenomenal 
exist - and the species were regarded as but copies or 
refioLliGac '^ these thoughts of the Deity. The view that 
•.UP' i '■>- "niversals are only names, and that reality 

c^ 'vidual concrete objects, — in the species 

of t^ ;,— :'^wa.s ^ed nominalism. The conflict between 

these tv. .h ,,,U- hysicians continued long and loud, 

through fo. numerable volumes, and consti- 

tutes the matv.' • ^ content of intellectual life 

we are studying. -> revival of learning had 

attempted to bring ^ :■' 'ng of the ancients, 

their grammar and rhct '^e service of the 

Church, so the scholastic 1. i ■^\':: ta: r:otroduction of 
ancient philosophy in the servK :■ of the '"!■:''.'" This phi- 

losophy was to remain under the cl. ^al doc- 

trine, already determined though not s) "ase 

of any discrepancy the latter was alwa^ 
which philosophical doctrine must be accon. 

But these views were of more than metaphysj,- 
they compassed all interests. Consider, for a moi. 
application of the views to some of the fundamental doc. 
previously suggested. At this period the doctrine of tran; 
stantiation had peculiar practical importance, on accoun' 
growing heresies, especially the Manichean, which held 
account of the belief in the evil of matter, that Christ's 



Middle Ages 297 

was only an appearance and that the true God was not the 
God of the Old Testament. If ideas or substances are real- 
ities, as the realist held, and are hence independent of the 
attributes or qualities which identify them in the concrete and 
which to the nominalist constitute the only reality, then it is 
possible to distinguish between the substance and the accident, 
and it is possible to conceive of a change in the substance 
without any corresponding change in the attribute. Only thus 
could the Church justify its belief in the doctrine of transub- 
stantiation, or the actual change in the bread and wine of the 
sacrament of the Lord's Supper. As in this sacrament 
of the Church, wherein this contact between Christ and 
flesh was demonstrated daily, was an answer to the heresy that 
the divine could not have lived in contact with a wicked 
world ; so in the general doctrine of realism, with its distinc- 
tion between substance and accidents, the general relation of 
finite and infinite was indicated. Other doctrines with their 
explanations are very similar. So these philosophical views 
furnished characteristic solutions, to all theological problems. 
Almost every heresy, every divergence from the accepted 
view, found its justification in the nominal position, while to 
the realist, the orthodox view of the Church, representing as it 
did the universal, was the only reality, — was the truth ; the 
view of the individual, any special interpretation which he 
might desire to give, was merely an "unsubstantial," temporal 
accident, not worthy of consideration or of toleration. To the 
nominalist this view of the individual was the reality ; thus 
both his religion and his philosophy became heresy. 

This is but. one, though the fundamental, aspect of the phi- 
losophy of the times. It is sufficient to indicate the point in 
which we are here interested. The content of scholasticism 
is this fusion of philosophy and theology, in which all theo- 
logical questions — and all secular questions became theo- 
logical — were given a philosophical form and a most formal 
and extended elaboration. On the other hand, the most 



298 History of Education 

abstract of metaphysical questions were given the form of a 
concrete theological problem. 

The educational content of scholasticism consisted in the 
most noted of these systematized schemes of learning, with 
the innumerable comments upon them. During the twelfth 
and thirteenth centuries were constructed the two most noted 
of these : The Sententice of Peter the Lombard (c. 1 100-c. 1 160) 
and the Siunvia TheologicB of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). 
The former of these was the most generally used text-book, 
and the most generally prized summary of scholastic knowl- 
edge of the remaining scholastic centuries ; while the latter 
was and yet remains the most complete and thorough presen- 
tation of the knowledge of the times, or, to be more exact, of 
the theology of the Church, and was accepted, as it yet is by 
the Roman Catholic Church, as the orthodox presentation of 
its beUefs. Preliminary to the mastery of such summaries of 
scholastic knowledge, scholastic education demanded the 
mastery of the science of logic or dialectic as a preparation for 
the practice of the art. Therefore, the earlier years of scho- 
lastic training, after a brief preliminary study of grammar, 
were devoted to this study. As the development of these - 
studies is synonymous with the growth of universities, it will 
be further noted in connection with a subsequent topic. 'In 
general, the content of scholasticism and of scholastic educa- 
tion deals with the abstract and immaterial ; just as the tend- 
ency in current education is to reject all that is of this character 
and to deal only with that which is concrete and material in 
character. Hence, in respect to content, present education and 
present thought are so opposed to that of the period under 
consideration, that there is no tolerance for it at all, and hence 
it can be little appreciated. 

THE FORM OF SCHOLASTIC KNOWLEDGE was that of a 
scheme of thought carefully systematized after the ideas of 
Aristotelian deductive logic. Logical perfection was the ideal 



Middle Ages 299 

sought for in the completed works ; these perfected works 
constituted the texts. Even in more rudimentary phases of 
the study, logical arrangement was the sole aim. The idea of 
organizing knowledge according to principles derived from the 
mental condition or stage of development of the student is an 
idea of much later development. By this period of scholastic 
education the complementary principle, that of organization 
based upon the logic of the subject, was fixed upon education 
for many centuries. Hence in the introductory subjects, such 
as grammar, which the child first attempts in his school work, 
the most formal logical arrangement was adopted. The subject 
was presented to the child for his mastery in the order in which 
it appeals to the most mature mind. Previous to this time, 
the catechetical arrangement, that of questions and answers, 
was much followed, even in treatises upon the seven liberal 
arts. During the earlier scholastic period, the dialogue form 
was yet much used. But with scholasticism the systematized, 
logical form prevailed almost to the exclusion of the other. A 
very brief statement of the form of Aquinas's great work may 
serve as an example. The Suinma is divided into four parts, 
each one of which is composed of a number of questions, 
each representing some great doctrinal truth, for example, the 
doctrine of the Trinity. The questions are divided into a 
number of articles, each representing some subtruth under the 
general truth. Following the statement of the problem under 
each article, the objections or the counter solutions of the prob- 
lem are stated in order (i, 2, 3, 4, etc.), then follows the argu- 
ment in favor of the true solution, then the accepted resolution 
of the problem, and finally sei'iatim answers to each of the dif- 
ficulties raised. All this is given in condensed, abstract form, 
in a style without any ornament or attempt at literary embel- 
lishment, and that, too, in a work that fills several folio volumes. 
So far as form alone is concerned, the most exacting require- 
ments of modern science could desire no more ; for it is most 
rigidly scientific in form though wholly deductive in character, 



300 



Histoiy of Education 



THE METHOD OF SCHOLASTICISM, as indicated by its 
form, is that of logical analysis. In reality there were two 
distinct methods used by the Schoolmen and in the univer- 
sities as well. The first of these, the one in most general 




A Medieval Disputation. 

approval, was that of the Suinuia just given. The entire 
subject, if a treatise by a Schoolman, or the entire text, if a 
course of lectures upon a text-book or subject in the uni- 
versity, was divided into appropriate parts, then into heads, 
subheads, subdivisions, etc., down to the particular propo- 
sition of each sentence. Each topic was examined most 



Middle Ages 301 

minutely after the manner of Aristotelian logic, under the 
headings of formal, final, material, and efficient causes ; its 
literal, allegorical, mystical, and moral meaning. Thus with 
analyzed text and comment upon the basis of each division, 
the student was overwhelmed with a multitude of fine meta- 
physical distinctions. 

The other and freer method was that of stating the propo- 
sition, then the several possible interpretations with the 
difficulties of each interpretation, and finally the selection of 
the favored one. The solution favored gave rise to other 
problems ; these in turn suggested varying solutions with 
their appropriate answers and their subsequently suggested 
problems following as a consequence. So far as approach- 
ing a definite conclusion and giving order and system to 
knowledge, this method was inferior to the former ; but in 
its .stimulus to thought, to the freedom of inquiry, and to 
general progressiveness, it was far more beneficial in its 
influence. 

According to this method some of the Schoolmen stated 
their theories in the form of questions instead of in proposi- 
tions, thus provoking inquiry and stimulating independent 
thought rather than merely suggesting varying ways of stat- 
ing an accepted proposition. Thus it was possible to pro- 
pose almost any view. A few such questions from the Yea 
and Nay \Sic et Noii) of Abelard will illustrate this tend- 
ency and the daring freedom of thought sometimes shown. 
Should hjimaji faith be based upon reason, or no ? Is God a 
substance, or no ? Is God the author of evil, or no ? Can 
God be resisted, or no ? Do we sometimes sin tmwillingly , 
or no f Does God pnnish the same sin both here and in the 
hereafter, or no ? 

It became customary for the radical thinker to protect 
himself from opposition and persecution by stating that pro- 
posed views were true philosophically but not theologically, 
or vice versa; but this subterfuge fell into disfavor with the 



302 History of Education 

ecclesiastical authorities. While the customary attitude was 
one of complete dependence upon authority, and while a 
general view, accepted as orthodox, tended to prevail, yet 
there was considerable variety of opinion among the few. 
Though the prevalent view was that of reahsm, it is impossi- 
ble to assign any given content of principles or dogmas as 
the philosophical content of scholasticism, for there can be 
found at least a suggestion of almost every phase of modern 
philosophical thought. In a similar way there are few 
modern theological views but found some exponent at some 
time within the scholastic period. Scholasticism, then, is 
primarily a method ; the systematization of all thought accord- 
ing to the principles of the deductive Aristotehan logic, the 
subjection of all intellectual interests to the restrictions of 
logical form. 

DEVELOPMENT OF SCHOLASTICISM. — Some of the 

causes immediately operative in the development of scholas- 
ticism have been enumerated (pp. 292-3). The liberal thought 
of John Scotus Erigena, who declared the identity of true' 
religion and true philosophy rather than the subordination of 
the latter, produced little effect upon his age because he was 
so far in advance of it. It is true that the doctrinal disputes 
in dialectic form, especially those concerning transubstantia- 
tion, began with Scotus and his follower Beranger (d. 1088), 
but then the logical and philosophical interests were wholly 
subordinate. During the eleventh century this conflict be- 
tween realism and nominalism became definitely formulated 
in the discussions between Anselm (c. 1034-1 109) and Roscel- 
linus (d. 1 106). Anselm, called the father of scholasticism, 
first as abbot of Bee and later as archbishop of Canter- 
bury (1070-1089), expounded in a number of writings the 
realistic position and its application to the doctrines of the 
Church, especially in his " Monologue of the method in which 
we may account for our faith." Roscellinus, a Breton canon. 



Middle Ages 303 

attacked these positions in regard to many of the doctrines of 
the Church, especially that of the Trinity, on the basis of the 
nominalist position. Roscellinus held that logic had to do 
only with the right use of words, and opposed all those views 
which made the traditional reahsm of Aristotle the basis of 
theological belief. These disputes were continued for a cen- 
tury or more in various places, especially in France, and by 
various Schoolmen of minor importance. The number of 
persons attracted by these disputations was so great that 
a chronicle states in regard to some " that if thou shouldst 
walk about the public places of the city and behold the 
throngs of disputants, thou wouldst say that the citizens had 
left off their other labors and given themselves over entirely 
to philosophy." 

The fate of Roscellinus, who was martyred, discouraged 
those inclined to hold the nominaUstic view, which conse- 
quently did not reappear in its extreme form until the latter 
part of the scholastic period. The critical work of Roscellinus 
was continued by one of his pupils, and one of the greatest of 
the Schoolmen, Abelard (Petrus Abelardus, 1079-1142), who, 
however, opposed the extreme nominalism of one of his 
teachers as he did the realism of William of Champeaux 
his other teacher. His philosophical position, strikingly sim- 
ilar to that of Aristotle — a fact then unknown — was the 
compromise view of conccptitalism. According to this view 
universals are existent, though not independent of the phe- 
nomenal form in which they exist,! save as conceptions in the 
divine mind before creation. 1 Abelard's position regarding 
the great philosophical question was a conciliatory one ; but 
his real influence, and his writings in general, were far from 
it. His most influential work. Sic et Non (p. 301), was a 
collection of passages from the Bible and from patristic writ- 
ings on theological questions, designed to show the conflicting 
ideas or views of the religious and ecclesiastical authorities. 
He gave no decision concerning the solution of the conflicting 



304 History of Education 

views, consequently inquiry was stimulated, the importance 
of research emphasized ; but the general impression was that 
faith in the unanimity and hence the reliability of ecclesiasti- 
cal authority was questioned. While the theological and phil- 
osophical positions of Abelard were less radical, his influence 
was far more critical and far more destructive of unquestioned 
obedience to authority. Reason, he held, was antecedent to 
faith, and much of Christian belief could be supplied by 
reason. At least the arrogance of ecclesiastical authority 
was shattered ; and though the man and his writings were 
condemned, his life bhghted by persecution, his views re- 
garded as heretical, his influence continued to exist as one of 
the most powerful forces in scholastic thought during the 
following period. 

The thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries constitute the 
period of the complete, dominance of scholasticism. During 
this period philosophy and theology seem to be in complete 
sympathy ; the widest extension is given to philosophical 
thought in its Christian dress ; theological views are elabo- 
rated into most perfect and compHcated systems ; reason and 
faith are in fullest accord. The causes of this complete 
triumph of scholasticism, the perfection of its system, and 
the wide extension of its limits, were twofold. In the first 
place, most of the doctrines of the Church were formulated 
and estabhshed as a result of the previous controversy. 
Certain of these, wherein complete harmony with ancient 
philosophy or with reason was impossible, were held to be 
beyond the limits of philosophical discussion. It is in this 
respect that the bondage or subordination of philosophy to 
theology is seen ; for within certain established limits, per- 
fect freedom of discussion was given. The second of these 
causes was the recovery of most of the writings of Aristotle, 
possessed to-day. The largest number of them, however, came 
at that time through corrupted translations or in the form of 
Arabic commentaries. Of the most influential of these, the 



Middle Ages ^,05 

chief work of Averroes, Renan remarked that it was " a 
Latin translation of a Hebraic translation of a commen- 
tary on an Arabic translation of a Syriac translation of a 
Greek text of Aristotle." Imperfect as were these texts, 
they at least allowed the Schoolmen to perfect their sys- 
stem, for they gave them the complete system of Aristotelian 
logic. Besides the metaphysics of "The Master," his phys- 
ics, psychology, and ethics were now introduced to furnish 
new material for scholastic learning. Through the modi- 
fication of some Aristotelian principles, the scholastic posi- 
tion concerning the harmony of faith and reason prevailed 
throughout this period. Its educational aspect is to be dis- 
cussed in connection with the universities. Mention can 
here be made of the names of but a few of the greatest 
among a host of educational leaders and writers and intel- 
lectually powerful men. 

THE GREAT SCHOOLMEN. — The first of the Schoolmen 
to be acquainted with the entire philosophy of Aristotle and 
to employ it in the service of theology was Alexander of 
Hales (d. 1245), TJie Irrefragable doctor, author of Swnma 
Theologies. Vincent of Bauvais (d. 1264) was an encyclo- 
pedist. Bonaventura (122 1-1274), The Seraphic Doctor, a 
Platonist rather than an Aristotelian in his philosophy, rep- 
resented as did the Victorines of the preceding century the 
mystical tendency in thought and education. Albertus Mag- 
nus ( 1 193-1280), called The Universal Doctor, was the first 
to reproduce the philosophy of Aristotle in systematic form 
and with constant reference to the Arabic commentaries 
that constituted so large a part of the new knowledge of the 
times. Thomas Aquinas (i 225-1 274), The Angelic Doctor, 
was the most influential of all. In his great work (pp. 298-9) 
he represents the culmination of scholasticism, and is its author- 
itative exponent both in that period and in subsequent times. 
Joannes Duns Scotus (c. 1 271-1308), The Subtle Doctor, was 
famous as a founder of a school of theology rival to that of 

X 



3o6 History of Education 

Thomas ; his work, however, was rather of a critical and nega- 
tive than of a constructive character. 

The long line of great Schoolmen was closed by William of 
Occam ( 1 280-1 347), The Invincible Doctor, who revived again 
the nominalist views. His work was rather an attack upon 
the entire realist system than a formulation of specific doc- 
trines. In general Occam denied that theological doctrines 
could be demonstrated by reason, and held that they were 
wholly matters of faith. He held that particulars alone were 
real and that universals were mere conceptions of the mind. 
Thus he prepared the way for the careful, concrete study of 
the objects of nature and of the mind. On the other hand, 
some more questionable results of nominahsm were also evi- 
denced in Occam's view. In opposition to the realists, who 
posited that the ideas of right and wrong were eternal and 
unchangeable because copies of ideas of right and v/rong in 
the Divine mind, he taught that right and wrong depended 
merely upon the arbitrary will of God, and that " moral evil 
was evil only because it was prohibited." He rejected the 
prevailing Aristotelian psychology, holding that the mind was 
a unity, and that the distinction between the faculties was only 
formal or logical. In many further details of his philosophy 
and psychology he foreshadowed the views of modern schools, 
especially those of Locke and the sensationalists, and is re- 
sponsible for the oft-quoted and expressive summary of these 
views, — " There is nothing in the understanding that was 
not previously in the senses." Politically and ecclesiastically 
Occam represented a similar protest against the dominance of 
the authority of the Church, consequently with him scholasti- 
cism entered its last phase, the period of decline. Whatever 
was vital to the spirit of progress now lived in nominalism only, 
and soon passed over into the new spirit of the fifteenth- 
century Renaissance. The old scholasticism persisted (p. 405), 
but it no longer represented the progress of intellectual life 
and developing educational ideas and procedures. 



Middle Ages 307 

CRITICISM OF SCHOLASTICISM.— That scholasticism 
was a tremendous advance in intellectual hfe beyond that of 
the early Middle Ages is evident; that it possessed some 
decided merits peculiar to itself is at least suggested by the 
previous discussion ; that it served as the only education of 
the higher or intellectual type for several centuries, and pro- 
duced a succession of great men unsurpassed in their intellec- 
tual acumen, has been noted. For all that, by the fifteenth 
century scholasticism reached its limits, degenerated into mere 
form, and became an obstacle to further progress, so that it 
had to be cast aside as outgrown and useless by the Renais- 
sance movement of that period. Though revived in Prot- 
estant form with but slight variations (see p. 405), scholasti- 
cism has been mentioned only with execration and derision by 
almost every writer, except those of Roman Catholic sympa- 
thies, during all the subsequent centuries, until the nineteenth, 
at least. This was especially true of the sixteenth and seven- 
teenth century philosophers, who found it necessary to over- 
throw the methods of scholasticism before progress could be 
made. Hobbes held that '.'those who wrote volumes of such 
stuff were mad, and tended to make others so ; " that " the 
common sort of men seldom speak insignificantly and are, 
therefore, by those other egregious people [the Schoolmen] 
counted idiots." Bacon declared : — 

•''This kind of degenerate learning did chiefly reign amongst 
the Schoolmen : who having sharp and strong wits, and abun- 
dance of leisure, and small variety of reading, but their wits 
being shut up in the cells of a few authors (chiefly Aristotle 
their dictator) as their persons were shut up in the cells of 
monasteries and colleges, and knowing little history, either of 
nature or time, did out of no great quantity of matter and in- 
finite agitation of wit spin out unto us those laborious webs of 
learning which are extant in their books. For the wit and 
mind of man, if it work upon matter, which is the contempla- 
tion of the creatures of God, worketh according to the stuff, 
and is limited thereby ; but if it work upon itself, as the spider 



3oS History of Education 

worketh his web, then it is endless and brings forth indeed 
cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness of thread and 
work, but of no substance or profit." 



Hallam said that their works consisted of " worthless men- 
tal abstractions, of axioms assumed at haphazard, of distinc- 
tions destitute of the smallest foundation, and with the horrors 
of a barbarous terminology." Criticisms such as these could 
be found without limit. 

A factor in all of these criticisms is the scholastic use of 
terms ; but this for the most part is but the same criticism 
that can be made against the philosopher or metaphysician 
at all times. Undoubtedly from the extent of their discus- 
sions, and the fact that these discussions contained all the 
learning of these centuries, this terminology was vastly ex- 
tended ; but there is no real criticism to be found in this. 
The criticism against their literary style and the cor- 
ruption of the language induced has a basis in fact ; but 
from the very nature of their interests any other style would 
have been out of harmony. A more fundamental criticism 
is that they dealt altogether with unrealities. But they dealt 
with the same material and used much the samie methods as 
does the philosopher or theologian of modern times. Criti- 
cism against the one lies also against the other. The real 
objection here is found in the fact that this material consti- 
tuted the sole intellectual interests of the time ; this, however, 
is an indictment against the age rather than against the 
Schoolmen. The indictment that their beliefs, their proposi- 
tions, their problems, were without any foundation, that they 
possessed no reahty, is again one that argues a limitation 
in the critic as well as in the criticised. The foundation of 
these beliefs was primarily in authority ; the foundation 
which a modern student seeks for his beliefs is in experience ; 
but the Schoolmen sought to supplement the support of au- 
thority by that of reason, just as the modern student seeks to 



Middle Ages 309 

interpret experience ; only, again, reason to the Schoolmen 
was discovered by introspective, deductive analysis ; to the 
modern largely by objective experimentation or by compara- 
tive induction. The valid objections to scholastic learning are 
not so much those pointing out its positive defects, as those 
revealing its negative limitations. 

MERITS AND DEMERITS OF SCHOLASTIC EDUCATION. 

— The first great limitation of the Schoolmen, and the one 
sufficient to call forth the condemnation of the modern mind, 
was that they never stopped to inquire concerning the validity 
of the material with which they dealt or to ascertain whether 
they had all the data before attempting the conclusion. A 
second and related limitation was that the material they dealt 
with was abstract and metaphysical without being supple- 
mented by any knowledge of the concrete and physical. 
Here again the scholastic attitude is wholly out of sympathy 
with the modern. The truths they reached possessed only 
formal value ; they could affect primarily the thought life, 
and only indirectly and remotely the conduct of the people, 
and then of but few. They made no attempt to connect the 
two worlds of intellectual interests ; hence they possessed no 
external test or criterion to judge the reality, or at least the 
value, of their principles. Their procedure was forever in a 
circle ; no intellectual progress was possible until there came 
to prevail the nominalist position, — that the concrete, the 
individual, was reality. From scholasticism general principles, 
of formal value only, could be derived. By some keen minds 
of the time this limitation was reahzed. John of Salisbury 
(c. 1115-1180), a keen student, a famous teacher, a pupil of 
Abelard's and of other noted Schoolmen, a friend and sup- 
porter of Thomas a Becket, a Schoolman who, almost alone 
among the learned men of his time, is distinguished by his 
knowledge and love for the classics and his distaste for what 
he felt to be the futility of dialectic, has left in his Metalogicus, 



3IO History of Education 

— one of the very few detailed accounts of the educational 
methods and activities of the times, — a statement of the non- 
progressiveness of dialectic study. After a student life at 
Mount St. Genevieve at Paris, under Abelard and other fa- 
mous masters, and after a study of theology in other schools, 
he returned to Paris and thus summed up his impressions 
of the activities of his fellow-students : — 

" And so, it seemed pleasant to me to revisit my old com- 
panions on the Mount, whom I had left and whom dialectic 
still detained, to confer with them touching old matters of 
debate ; that we might by mutual comparison measure to- 
gether our several progress. I found them as before, and 
where they were before ; nor did they appear to have reached 
the goal in unravelling the old questions, nor had they added 
one jot of a proposition. The aims that once inspired them, 
inspired them still : they only had progressed in one point, 
they had unlearned moderation, they knew not modesty ; in 
such wise that one might despair of their recovery. And 
thus experience taught me a manifest conclusion, that, whereas 
dialectic furthers other studies, so if it remains by itself it 
lies bloodless and barren, nor does it quicken the soul to yield 
fruit of philosophy, except the same be conceived from else- 
where." 

One further decided limitation of the Schoolmen was the 
fact that much of their discussion possessed no reality ; not 
only no reality in the concrete world of everyday life, but no 
validity in thought as well. Much of it consisted merely 
of endless and profitless discussions about words and terms. 
Accurate terminology is usually necessary to the progressive 
formulation of truth for further discovery or investigation; 
but there may be endless disputations about terms, " hair- 
splitting " niceties of thought, that have for their purpose 
nothing beyond the discussion. Even against the greatest of 
the Schoolmen such a criticism is often valid. On the other 
hand, much of the modern contempt for the Schoolmen in 
this respect is based upon a failure to apprehend their point 



Middle Ages 311 

of view and their interest. To them all questions must be 
given a philosophical form and a theological bearing. Hence 
such trivial or even sacrilegious questions as those so often 
quoted to indicate the puerility and utter worthlessness of 
scholastic learning are upon subjects yet considered of great- 
est importance in the thought-world of our own times and yet 
productive of many volumes. " How many angels can stand 
on the point of a needle .'' " "Can God make two hills without 
the intervening valley.'' " "What happens when a mouse eats 
the consecrated host.''" — all such questions conceal beneath 
their simple form the profound inquiries concerning the rela- 
tion of the finite to the infinite, the attributes of the infinite, 
the nature of reality. Give them a form that only the trained 
metaphysician can understand and they constitute the pro- 
fundities of thought ; give them the form such that the 
untrained adult or the youth just beginning his course of 
scholastic studies can comprehend and handle, and they form 
the "monstrosities" of the Schoolmen. 

One decided merit of scholasticism was that it stimulated 
intellectual interests. In the development of the universities 
we are to see the immediate results of this. As a stage in 
educational evolution, scholasticism is worthy of strongest 
emphasis. The education of the early Middle Ages gave little 
or no place to purely intellectual concerns ; the entire ten- 
dency was to eliminate these. While scholasticism represents 
a type of such interests that finds no parallel either in preced- 
ing or succeeding times, it is also true that there are few 
periods in history in which interests of a purely intellectual, 
even metaphysical, character are prominent. 

This legitimatizing of intellectual interests had a further 
profound result : it developed an intellectual ability no longer 
confined to rare and infrequent cases. The learned men of 
the early Middle Ages are few and widely scattered in time 
and place. From the thirteenth century men of learning 
are very numerous. As we have seen, the character of their 



312 History of Educaiwn 

learning is not very highly valued by subsequent ages, but 
no one denies the acuteness of their minds. The subtlety of 
their reasoning is such that the modern student, trained to 
deal with concrete materials rather than with abstractions, 
finds it very difficult to follow their arguments with their fine 
distinctions and their multitude of accurately used scientific 
or logical terms. Even their discussions about words and 
subtleties of thought performed an extremely important 
function in the subsequent development of thought, because 
it produced a scientific and logical terminology so essential to 
all accurate thinking. 

From the point of view of realism, scholasticism was the 
attempt to support authority by the intellect, to supplement 
faith by reason ; it was the union of theology and logic, of 
religion and metaphysics. But from the nominalist point of 
view, scholasticism was the conflict of reason with authority, 
an attempt to overthrow religious despotism by philosophy, 
the desire to broaden religious beliefs by intelUgence. Realism 
as seen in the earlier scholastic discussions concerning the 
doctrine of the eucharist was based upon the deceptiveness 
of the senses, the insufficiency of human experience as a 
source of truth ; nominalism was based altogether upon the 
validity, the trustworthiness, and the sufficiency of experience. 
Truth was to be reached through the testimony of the senses ; 
only thus was the validity of the general notion to be tested. 
To be sure, this view was rather implicit than explicit in the 
teachings of the nominalists ; they held it as a formal truth. 
Only very gradually did it work itself out ; only in the 
course of time was it realized that this position was wholly 
destructive of the scholastic attitude ; only with the close 
of the period was it seen that even if the nominalist 
position was true, it possessed only the formal value that 
might also be possessed by the reahst position. Philosophi- 
cally, the modern point of view was to reject both ; the 
approach of modern thought is different from that of scholas 



Middle Ages 313 

ticism. But the nominalist influence as it became stronger 
and stronger had this important result : the emphasis upon 
the importance of experience, not now in the formal sense, 
but in a more material sense, as the source of truth is pecul- 
iarly characteristic of the development of the Renaissance 
thought as formulated in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
turies. Nominalism gradually worked toward this concep- 
tion ; and, with its triumph in the fourteenth century, the 
scholastic period shortly came to an end and a new educa- 
tional, philosophical, and intellectual period began. 

§ 6. THE UNIVERSITIES 

ORIGIN OF UNIVERSITIES. — Under the stimulus of the 
interest in dialectic, a number of schools connected with 
the cathedrals and monasteries sprang into prominence in the 
later eleventh and early twelfth century. The most impor- 
tant of these was that at Paris under William of Champeaux 
(d. 1121). The success of Abelard in causing VViUiam to 
modify his dialectic statements, the fact that Abelard took a 
position decidedly hostile to the dominant realism, and the 
resulting fact that unorthodox dialectic views thus found room 
for expression and a more genuine discussion concerning 
views was thus stimulated, soon made Paris the center of 
these intellectual interests. The statement that Abelard drew 
thirty thousand students around him at Paris is probably 
an exaggeration, though the other statement that from his 
students came twenty cardinals and fifty bishops receives 
greater support. Undoubtedly great numbers of students 
were so drawn and demanded a multitude of minor teachers 
to prepare them for the more profound discussions of the 
master. Thus the essential elements of the early univer- 
sity — the students and the teachers — were found at Paris 
before the middle of the twelfth century. With the eleventh 
century Western Europe, especially the Church, began to 



314 History of Education 

throw off the incubus to enterprise and the obstacle to greater 
intellectual freedom that existed in the belief that the millen- 
nium was at hand. The fact thai; during the tenth and the 
eleventh centuries the Northmen, the last of the migratory 
Teutons, accepted a settled life and gave to France and Eng- 
land a period of comparative peace, rendered a development 
of the interests of a stable civiHzation possible. Though as 
yet they showed little appreciation for the cultural aspects of 
life, these same Normans, in fact the Teutons in general, 
were endowed with virile minds. Hence they were drawn to 
dialectic discussion, as they could not have been to a mere 
literary study of appreciation ; and more and more as other 
lines of activity were reduced to the orderliness of a complex 
society, they turned their genius into intellectual lines. This 
new Teutonic blood affected Italy as well as England, France, 
and Germany. The papacy and the Church in general had 
recovered from a period of greatest degradation, and through 
the struggle with the Holy Roman emperors both had acquired 
new strength and new interests. This affected intellectual 
pursuits and stimulated to the study of dialectic, theology, 
and canon law. The development of commercial enterprise 
and municipal government, especially in the Italian cities, 
stimulated secular interests and secular learning to a point 
such as they had never reached before. Meanwhile the 
Crusade movement had begun. The isolation of European 
society — which really under early feudalism had not been a 
society but a series of isolated groups — was broken down. 
The communication of ideas was stimulated and the intel- 
lectual horizon broadened immensely. The " barbarians " of 
the East were discovered, with reason, to consider in turn the 
people of the West as " barbarians." The attitude of inquiry 
and of doubt, of freedom of opinion, which belonged to the 
East began to affect the West. This contact with the East and 
with Saracen learning brought to Europe, not only a knowl- 
edge of Arabic culture and science (first looked upon as black 



Middle Ages 315 

art, later to be embraced as science), but it also furnished in 
the thirteenth century a completer knowledge of Aristotle 
and of Greek philosophy. These influences combined in 
varying proportions : no two universities were founded by 
the concurrence of exactly the same circumstances. Each 
had some causes peculiar to itself, and all the earliest ones 
were, in reality, special schools where one or two special 
studies were pursued. Only later did they offer in their 
curricula the entire range of higher studies. 

The immediate cause of the origin of universities in Italy was 
not the same as that in France and England. In these latter 
countries they were the outgrowth of theological and dialectic 
interests, both growing out of the Church. In Southern Italy, 
where the contact with the Saracens, with the Normans, and 
with the old population of Greek origin was intimate, and 
where a more direct acquaintance with Greek literature was 
preserved, there had grown up, in connection with the mon- 
astery at Salerno, an interest in the study and practice of 
medicine. The work and teachings of the monks along these 
lines were stimulated by the first Crusade and the fame of this 
school spread abroad by the returning knights. Under the 
shadow of the monastic influence there grew up a school 
for the teaching of medicine, which in a way became the first 
university. Salerno itself was never organized into a char- 
tered university, though this distinctive teaching work of a 
secular character was well established shortly after the middle 
of the eleventh century. Later the school was united to that 
of the neighboring city of Naples which was chartered by 
Frederick II as the University in 1224. In the northern 
Italian cities, struggling as they were with the German 
emperor for their rights, a new and vital interest grew up in 
Roman law, a knowledge of which had been allowed to fall 
into desuetude. The emperor based most of his claims to 
authority upon the rights of the old Roman emperors ; the 
cities sought to check these claims by a knowledge of charters, 



3i6 History of Education 

of edicts, and of legal limitations that had long been forgot- 
ten. The knowledge of Roman law had probably never been 
allowed to die out entirely, though it was long thought that 
the growth of this study dated from an alleged discovery of a 
copy of the Pandects of Justinian made in 1135 at the sack 
of Amalfi. However that may be, there grew up in several 
of these cities schools for the study of law. That at Bologna 
was made famous by the greatest of these early teachers, 
Irnerius (1067-c. 1138), in the same manner that Abelard 
raised Paris to distinction, and large numbers of students 
collected here. Thus Bologna became a center for study, and 
as these students and teachers were given privileges, it be- 
came the first organized university. 

THE FOUNDING OF THE UNIVERSITIES. — These 

definite privileges, given in the form of a written document 
from emperor or pope, thus became the charter or charters 
of the institution. It was only much later that an institution 
was organized outright by conferring on it all desired privi- 
leges. At Bologna the first charter was given by Emperor 
Frederick I, in 1 158. Paris received its first recognition from 
Louis VII in 11 80 and was recognized by the pope at about 
the same time. Its full recognition came in 1200. At Oxford 
and Cambridge the date of the formal recognition by charter 
is yet more difficult to determine, but was somewhat later. 
In all these cases the large groups of students and teachers 
had existed for some time previous to charter organization, 
and schools had existed under monastic or Church control in 
all these centers for an indefinite period. Chartered institu- 
tions, that is those possessing special privileges, quickly 
came to exert peculiar influence and were rapidly multiplied. 
During the thirteenth century nineteen of these institutions 
were created by popes and monarchs ; during the fourteenth, 
twenty-five more were added ; and during the fifteenth, thirty 
more. By the period of the classical Renaissance there 



Middle Ages 317 

existed some seventy-five or eighty of these institutions 
scattered over all the countries of Europe. 

STRUCTURE AND ORGANIZATION OF UNIVERSITIES. 

— No individual during the Middle Ages was secure in his 
rights, even of life or property, certainly not in the enjoy- 
ment of ordinary freedom, unless protected by specific 
guarantees secured from some organization. Politically, one 
must owe allegiance to some feudal lord from whom pro- 
tection was received ; economically, one must secure his 
rights through merchant or craft guild; intellectual interests 
and educational activities were secured and controlled by the 
Church. In the cases mentioned, groups of students are col- 
lected in centers made famous by earlier cathedral or mo- 
nastic schools, but are now no longer governed by the narrow 
interests of the monastic or clerical aspirant and no longer 
controlled by the rigid rules of these institutions. It became 
necessary that these groups should organize in order to regu- 
late their own conduct, to protect themselves from extortion 
by citizens of the community, to secure themselves legal rights, 
and to maintain their interests in the face of Church author- 
ities. By the conferment upon them of these special rights, 
such groups of students, or of students and teachers, were 
recognized as distinct bodies. 

The unorganized group of students and teachers was called 
a studinni generate, a name indicating either that a generality 
of studies was here pursued, or that the students were drawn 
from the widest territorial limits. Since none of these new 
centers of learning, in the early period, taught all the uni- 
versity subjects, the wide origin of the student clientele is prob- 
ably the primary characteristic indicated. Other features of 
the universities that distinguished them from previous schools 
were their government, democratic in its nature ; their loca- 
tion in centers of population rather than in remote spots, such 
as those sought by the monasteries ; their special privileges, 



3i8 History of Education 

legal and pecuniary ; and the fact that these privileges had to 
be conferred by general authority, and hence that universities 
were founded by pope or emperor or later by kings, but 
could never be founded by local patrons as were monastic or 
other ecclesiastical schools. 

Privileges of Universities. — -These special privileges con- 
ferred by pope and emperor upon students and masters were 
the specific instruments through which the university pro- 
tected itself and built itself up. In general, these charters 
conferred upon all masters, students, and even their atten- 
dants the privileges of clerks or of the clergy. Thus the 
privileges originally belonging to the teaching class and ex- 
tended by the Roman emperors to the clergy of the Christian 
Church, in turn, were again extended to the teaching class, 
and developed a new professional interest and a new class 
in society. Such privileges exempted students from official 
service, from military service, except under specific limita- 
tions {e.g. at Paris only when the enemy were within five 
leagues of the city wall); from taxation, especially the petty 
local exactions, from contributions, etc. One of the greatest 
of these privileges was that of internal jurisdiction. Just 
as the clergy had been permitted to absorb in their privileges 
the right of trying their own members practically in all civil 
and many criminal cases, so in turn the universities developed 
much the same power over their own members and their adher- 
ents. This custom first grew up in Bologna under the favor 
of the emperor, where, since civil law was the chief study, 
students and masters were particularly competent to exercise 
this right. The civil or at least police jurisdiction which the 
German university yet exercises over its student members, 
and the special favor of a privileged standard of conduct 
which the American college student claims, are survivals 
of this once extended right. 

The other important privilege is that of granting the degree, 
which was merely the license to teach. Previous to this time 



-^^ ' Middle Ages 319 

this important privilege had been granted only by the Church 
through the archbishop, the bishop, or one of their subordinate 
officers ; and thus the Church had controlled the method and 
the content of teaching. Ordinarily, under authority con- 
ferred by the pope, the university diploma granted the privi- 
lege of teaching in any institution wherever the authority of 
the university — that is, of the pope delegated by his charter 
— extended. This practically meant entire Christendom ; 
and though nominally sanctioned by the pope, the authority 
was exercised by the university direct, and thus one important 
monopoly of the Church over learning was destroyed. These 
privileges possessed a sanction in the "right," not granted by 
charter but developed by usage, known as cessatio, the right 
of "striking" or of moving the university, consisting as it did 
of students and teachers only, if its privileges were infringed. 
Thus the importance of Oxford dates from a migration 
from Paris in 1229 ; the importance of Cambridge from a 
similar disturbance at Oxford in 1 209. 

Many petty privileges were developed peculiar to each uni- 
versity. These, such as the right to demand bread or wine 
from dealers on certain feast days, though all such are merely 
incidental, were held on to quite as tenaciously as these more 
important ones. 

The Nations and the University. — These privileges had to 
be conferred upon definite bodies of people, and hence a more 
definite organization than the studium generate was necessary. 
The most natural division of these heterogeneous masses of 
students, drawn from all over Europe at a time when terri- 
torial lines were very indefinite and national distinctions were 
more those of a genetic than of a territorial and political 
character, was that of language and kinship. Hence students 
and masters organized into groups according to their national 
affiliations. And upon these nations singly, or more often 
in group , organization, charters containing privileges were 
granted. Such a body was called universitas ^nagistrorimt 



320 History of Ea. 

et scJiolariiim. The term tiniversitas 'i: ' all 

of us " or " some of us," and had the gt. 
of our word corporation or association or , 
time, but not until the fourteenth century, the one 
to be used instead of the previous more general tei 

At Paris there were four nations, the French, the Nor^ .is, 
the Picards, and the English (after the Hundred Years' 
War began the latter was changed to German). In Bologna 
there were at first four universities ; then two, the Cisalpine, 
consisting of seventeen nations, and the Transalpine, con- 
sisting of eighteen nations. Finally, all were amalgamated 
into one organization. 

A most peculiar characteristic of the Southern universities 
was the fact that the nations, and hence the governing bodies, 
were there wholly controlled by the students. Thus the 
students in the nations determined when lectures should begin, 
how long they should continue, whether the charges were 
legitimate, etc. In the North, where the students were for the 
most part those of the arts instead of those of law and were 
consequently much less mature, the masters themselves con- 
stituted the controlling force in the nations. 

The Faculties. — The organization of the nations had to do 
with conduct, civil right, and ecclesiastical jurisdiction. It had 
little direct reference to the studies. In time, however, it be- 
came necessary to regulate studies and methods, — in fact, 
scholastic procedure in general. The faculties were a some- 
what later development than the nations. In Paris they took 
shape in the second half of the thirteenth century. The term 
itself, quite as indefinite as the term university, simply meant 
knowledge or science ; but in time it was applied to a depart- 
ment of study, as faculty of law, theology, arts, etc., and finally 
to the body of men, previously termed consortiim niagistroruni, 
that had control of a particular department of study. This 
body, as it developed, obtained control of the granting f 
degrees and was originally composed of all who had taken 
their degree. 



Middle Ages 321 

Governing Body and Other Officials. — The nations elected, 
usually annually, a procurator or councilor ; each faculty a 
dean ; and these representatives together a rector of the 
university. This oiTficial head of the university possessed 
only delegated power, was usually elected annually, and in 
the South, at least, was usually a student. The real governing 
power of the university lay in the nations. By the sixteenth 
century these head officials had become for the most part 
political appointees, and the nations had long since lost all 
material authority. In the earlier centuries the Church 
continued to be represented directly by the chancellor, who 
nominally represented the archbishop in the conferring of the 
license to teach. This right soon became restricted to the 
ceremonial of the public conferment of the degree. 

DEGREES. — - The nature of the degree and of the entire 
work of the university can best be understood by a compari- 
son with some simpler aspects of mediaeval life which the 
student life paralleled. Such, for -example, is the chivalric 
education, with its seven years of training as a page and 
seven years as a squire preceding the acquirement of full 
knighthood. A similar parallel can be found in the making 
of a master in any craft or mercantile pursuit, where the youth 
had first to serve seven years as an apprentice ; then a more 
or less indefinite period as a journeyman, — a further period 
under a master while yet working for an independent wage, — 
all before he finally became a master possessing full rights in 
the guild. In quite a similar way the youth of thirteen or 
fourteen who wished to study the liberal arts, or to prepare 
himself for teaching, appeared at the university where he had 
to enroll himself with a master who was thereafter (for the 
first period at least) responsible for him. Here he served an 
apprenticeship of from three to seven years, until he learned 
t^ read the ordinary texts in grammar, rhetoric, and logic, 
to define the words and determine the meaning of phrases, 

Y 



322 Histoiy of Education 

the use of terms and classifications. When now he could 
define and determine and could demonstrate this to the 
satisfaction of masters other than his own, he was accepted, 
as it were, as a journeyman workman; he continued his 
studies under some master, no longer being rigidly held to 
the one as hitherto, and at the same time gave instruction to 
the younger boys under the direction of a master. After a 
further period of study, varying with time and place, in which 
he demonstrated his ability to carry on a logical disputation, 
and familiarized himself with the required texts, or the 
course of study, he was permitted to demonstrate this ability, 
as a journeyman workman does by making a " masterpiece," 
by defending in public a thesis against the masters of the art, 
that is, the members of the faculty or those who already pos- 
sessed the degree. This having been done successfully, he was 
given the degree, the licentiate, the mastership, the doctorate 

— whatever it might be called. Master, doctor, professor, 
were synonymous terms in the early university period. These 
degrees were all one and the same ; they signified that he was 
able to dispute as well as to define and determine, and author- 
ized him to teach publicly, that is, to determine and dispute ; 
thus he was admitted into the guild of masters or teachers, in 
other words, into the faculty. He was now on a parity with 
other members of the faculty, and could teach in the free com- 
petition into which they all entered, providing he could obtain 
students. 

The preliminary degree, the baccalaureate, — a term which 
signified a beginner, an inferior, an apprentice in any field, 
and was used in the Church, in chivalry, in the guilds, and in 
the country feudal organization, as well as in the university, 

— was simply formal admission into candidacy for the license 
and was not originally a degree in itself. During the fifteenth 
century it became a distinct stage in the educational process 
and hence quite well defined as a minor degree. The master- 
ship and doctorate, so far as there was any distinction between 



Middle Ages 323 

them, also indicated merely two aspects of the final confer 
ment of the privilege, — one was the more private profes- 
sional test, the other the public ceremonial. The one term 
came to be preferred in England, the other on the Continent. 
That there should be three successive degrees, as in an 
American institution, is an anomaly or at least a result of 
slow historical growth, not to be found in the mediaeval 
institution. 

THE METHODS AND CONTENT OF UNIVERSITY 
STUDIES have been previously discussed under scholasticism. 
After the opening of the thirteenth century the course of 
study was determined by papal bull or university statute and 
was far more restricted than was the intellectual activity of 
the twelfth century. While it is true that the thirteenth 
century possessed far more of Aristotle than did the twelfth, 
this but resulted in making the work more formal and re- 
stricted. Peter the Lombard was a pupil of Abelard and 
held much the same theological' views ; but the spirit ^i 
Abelard was that of free inquiry, of investigation, of rational- 
ism, while that of Peter was one of rigid scholastic orthodoxy. 
Abelard was condemned as a heretic ; Peter became the 
master authority of the university for two centuries. The 
influence of the one was dangerous to the supremacy of non- 
rational ecclesiasticism ; the influence of the other rendered 
it triumphant. 

A brief statement of definite details will make more vivid 
our conception of the work of the early universities. In the 
school of arts were used the grammatical works of Priscian, 
a work on grammatical figures by Donatus, the logical works 
of Aristotle given through Boethius and Porphyry ; the Cate- 
gories and the de Interpretatione of Aristotle, and the Isagoge 
of Porphyry, from which originated the realistic-nominalistic 
controversy, were known in the translations of Boethius ; the 
remainder of the Organon was known only through sum- 



324 History of Education 

maries or other writings of Boethius. To these latter the 
greatest amount of time was given, and even much of the 
time aside from the long hours in the lecture room was spent 
in participating in or listening to the endless disputations. 
At Paris the statutes of 12 15 introduced the EtJiics of Aris- 
totle, and in 1255 his Physics, Metaphysics, and his treatise ^ 
On the Soul. These works of Aristotle, previously inter- 
dicted at Paris, had been introduced somewhat earlier in 
other universities. Elsewhere some other introductory works 
on logic might be read, but everywhere the study of logic 
consumed the greater part of the time. Up to the middle of 
the fifteenth century, Aristotle controlled the work of the 
universities. The study of logic replaced all others, and 
rhetoric was given no attention whatever. The study of 
geometry and astronomy had made some progress, especially 
in the Italian universities and in the University of Vienna. 
The work of the professional faculties consisted, likewise, in 
the study of a few fundamental texts together with their in- 
numerable commentaries. 

The education of the early universities was wholly one of 
books, of a very limited selection of books in each particular 
field, but of books that were looked upon as furnishing in 
the written word absolute and ultimate authority. It was 
directed much more to the mastery of form and the develop- 
ment of power of formal speech, especially argumentation, 
than to the acquisition of knowledge, the pursuit of truth 
in the widest sense, or even to familiarizing the student with 
those literary sources of knowledge which, though lying within 
his grasp, were outside the pale of orthodox ecclesiastical 
approval, 

THE INFLUENCE OF EARLY UNIVERSITIES. — The 

results of scholasticism may be taken as the results of the 
universities, as was true with content and method of work. 
There are other influences, however, to be noted. The politi- 



Middle Ages 325 

cal influence of the universities, both direct and indirect, was 
marked. In the first place they furnished the iirst example 
of purely democratic organization. While in the monastery 
as well as the episcopal college a certain democratic freedom 
in the election of abbots prevailed, yet their government was 
essentially an absolutism. On the contrary, the officials of 
the early universities possessed only delegated powers and 
were under the immediate direction of the governing democ- 
racies. Freedom of discussion concerning political as well 
as ecclesiastical and theological matters here found its first 
home. While for the most part the sympathies of the uni- 
versities would naturally be with the privileged classes, whose 
privileges they themselves had obtained, they often became 
the mouthpiece of the common people in opposition to king 
or priestcraft.^ 

The right of the university to a voice in the government, 
to a seat in the parliaments of France, England, Scotland, 
is a recognition of this political authority and of the fact 
that the university had become a great "estate." The influ- 
ence of the University of Paris was unique, and as the parent 
and representative of all northern universities it came to 
represent the French nationality, as the Holy Roman Empire 
did the German and as the jxipacy did the Italian. It acquired 
almost as much influence in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and 
fifteenth centuries, as did these other great institutions. 

Questions of State and of controversy between State and 
Church, such as the divorces of Henry VIII of England and 
Philip of France, were submitted to the arbitration of the 
universities. The university often became the mouthpiece 
of the nation in voicing an opposition to the papacy ; and in 
one instance the kiftg of France and the university com- 
pelled one pope publicly to recant his views and apologize, 
and in another secured the deposition of the head of the 
Church. 

1 See Rashdall, Vol. I, pp. 518-525. 



326 History of Educatio7i 

Largely through the influence of the University of Paris 
the great schism in the papacy and the " Babylonian Cap- 
tivity" were ended. Though most of their famous teachers 
of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were friars, the 
universities in general became representatives of the secular 
as opposed to the regular clergy and hence champions of the 
rights and interests of the people and the national clergy, as 
opposed to the encroachments of the papacy. 

In a similar way the university became an authority in the 
settlement of disputed doctrinal points, and in the determina- 
tion of questions of heresy. In holding this balance of power 
it tempered the extreme views of the papacy and especially 
of the papal representatives, — the friar bodies, — and thus 
mitigated, if it did not entirely eHminate, the operations of 
the inquisition in the north of Europe. 

Politically, ecclesiastically, and theologically, the universities 
were the bulwark of freedom during these centuries from the 
dark ages to the Reformation. The constant complaint that 
they wished to meddle in every question is a testimony to 
their restraining influence on the arbitrariness of king and 
prelate. In them alone some freedom of expression of opin- 
ion was preserved. The one class whose opposing views 
monarchs were bound to respect was the university students ; 
even in the case of representatives from foreign and hostile 
people, such as often formed a part of the nations of a uni- 
versity, but rare instances of the violation of the privileges of 
students occurred. 

But in regard to the intellectual life, restricted, formal, and 
meager as it was, its greatest influence was exerted. Intel- 
lectual interests were now crystallized into a great institution, 
recognized as almost on a parity with Church, State, and 
nobility. While this interest and its resulting institutional 
organization were so reduced by the fourteenth or at least by 
the fifteenth century as to possess little but formal life, the 
university yet provided a retreat for the rare genius who kept 



Middle Ages 327 

alive the spark of real intellectual life and maintained a home 
for the new intellectual spirit when it did come. However 
hostile it may have been during these centuries to innovation, 
to radicalism, and to rationalism, yet in preserving the spirit 
of speculation, the university kept alive the spirit of inquiry. 
And out of it came such men as Roger Bacon, Dante, 
Petrarch, Wycliffe, Huss, Copernicus,- — the men who brought 
the modern spirit. 

§ 7. EDUCATION AT THE CLOSE OF THE MIDDLE AGES 

THE RENAISSANCE OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. 

— It will be seen from the discussion of the last two sections 
that the later Middle Ages were far from being " dark ages," 
and that the intellectual interests and educational activities of 
these centuries were very great. The later fifteenth century 
is usually taken as the transition period from mediaeval to 
modern times ; but the idea which this section seeks to em- 
phasize is that this transition educationally was for the most 
part in respect to spirit and content of the intellectual life. 
In these intervening centuries, the thirteenth to the fifteenth 
inclusive, there existed a place in social organization for an 
intellectual life, exerting profound influence, permitting much 
freedom, having definite character, possessing peculiar merits, 
and developing an appropriate educational system. 

Moreover, with the thirteenth century, the intellectual 
interests and control passed from the monasteries to the 
schoojs ; from under wholly ecclesiastical influences to one 
that while nominally ecclesiastical was in spirit chiefly secular. 
The leadership passed from Churchmen to doctors, who were 
preeminently logicians, and hence inclined to rationalism. 
Intellectual interests which began by being wholly religious 
or theological in character ended by being almost wholly 
philosophical and logical. It is true, on the other hand, that 
the dominant conception of education remained the disci- 



J 



28 History of Education 



plinary one ; that the function of schooHng was to develop 
this pecuHar intellectual power of logical character that would 
give one the ability to state, to interpret, to define, to argue, 
concerning abstract conceptions ; and that in respect to its 
outcome, however deep or intense its influence might be, it 
was peculiarly narrow. Yet on the other hand intellectual 
interests received general recognition ; schools of all grades 
became abundant ; the science of the ancients within this 
limited field became well known ; and the educational world 
but awaited the development of the new spirit, which came 
with the fifteenth and the sixteenth century, to become modern. 

Even in our judgment of the education and the intellectual 
life of this period, we are apt to do it injustice because of its 
difference in spirit from our own; just as during the interven- 
ing centuries there has been a very general tendency to deny 
any merit whatever to the intellectual interests and ability of 
the entire period, and to hold that educationally it was to be 
judged and condemned along with the preceding " dark ages." 
Nevertheless, the education and the intellectual life of these 
three centuries possessed some merits as characteristic as the 
peculiar features of the age out of which these merits grow. 

The chief of all these merits, though it carried with it cer- 
tain demerits as well, was its unity. There was an internal 
unity possessed by the intellectual life itself ; there was an 
external unity of the intellectual life in connection with the 
rehgious, the ecclesiastical, the artistic, the political, the eco- 
nomical, the social aspects of life. This unity was found in 
the dominant religious thought. The thirteenth century pos- 
sessed a unity of life and of ideas beyond any other century 
in history. ""^ It was the last century in which this peculiar 
unified life of the Middle Ages dominated. Realism — a 
monistic idealism — was not only the philosophy of the reli- 
gion, it was the philosophy of the life of the Middle Ages. 

1 See Frederic Harrison, The Meaning of History, Ch. V, A survey of tht 
thirteenth century. 



Middle Ages 329 

As the Gothic cathedrals, another great product of the thir- 
teenth century, were expressions not merely of architectural 
art, but of the arts of painting, sculptoring, glass staining, 
wood carving, mosaic designing, all unified in the one domi- 
nant expression of religious sentiment, so their education was 
harmonized with their religious life, their political activities, 
their aesthetic aspirations, their moral sympathies, their mys- 
tical yearnings, their theological discussions, as well as with 
their intellectual development. This unifying element was 
embodied in the dominance of the idea, — of ideals as these 
express some form of authority. As the Church expressed 
the absolute authority of the religious life, the scholastic the- 
ology the same absolutism in religious belief ; as the Holy 
Roman Empire expressed the same ideal politically, the 
feudal system socially, the guild system economically ; so 
the universities on the institutional side and scholasticism on 
the intellectual side expressed in education the dominance 
of the same absolutism, the same authority. 

As long as there is a widespread and general attempt to 
preserve this unity of hfe, — that is, during the fourteenth and 
fifteenth centuries, — the spirit of the Middle Ages persists. 
Nevertheless, there are continual eruptions of individualism 
and attempts to overthrow this absolutism, so that in these 
centuries the perfection and beauty of the system as seen in 
the thirteenth century no longer prevail. In the attempt to 
suppress these expressions of individuality, the harshness as 
well as the defects, the growing formahsm and final lifeless- 
ness of the earlier period, become apparent. It is not until 
the later fifteenth century that this effort to supplant the 
dominance of authority by the general sway of individual 
judgment, and the development of an educational system 
that possesses no such unity, take place in what is known, 
par excellence, as the Renaissance. Critical and destructive 
tendencies then come to dominate as do the unifying tenden- 
cies during the thirteenth. 



330 History of Education 

Meanwhile there are a few aspects of education during 
these last mediaeval centuries, besides the universities, that 
demand brief notice. 

THE FRIARS OR THE MENDICANT ORDERS came 
into general control of higher education by the middle of the 
thirteenth century. The Franciscans, or Gray Friars, were 
founded in 12 12 and the Dominican, or Black Friars, in 12 16. 
While the primary motive in the mendicant foundations 
was ascetic, they, especially the Dominicans, soon devoted 
themselves with their characteristic energy to philosophical 
study and to the control of educational institutions. The aim 
of the mendicants, differing from that of the earlier orders, 
was to save souls, to control people, to build up the Church ; 
and to do this they sought directly to control education. The 
great Schoolmen were mendicants. Alexander of Hales, 
Bonaventura, Duns Scotus, Roger Bacon, were Franciscans ; 
Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas were Dominicans. 
The prolonged antagonism between the Thomists and Scot- 
ists was but one aspect of the rivalry between these two 
orders. The fact that they disagreed concerning important 
theological doctrines and thus kept alive discussions and, to 
a certain extent, the right of private judgment, was of great 
significance in the intellectual life of the times ; the fact that 
each was at some time convicted of holding heretical doctrines 
somewhat mitigated the gravity of the offense for others not 
so powerfully connected, and postponed the day of absolute 
control of opinions. 

The Dominicans, or preaching friars, especially sought to 
control leaders of thought and of the Church, and hence to 
establish themselves at the universities. They soon had a 
convent in every university town. Aiming first to " capture " 
bachelor or master, they soon sought to control the teaching. 
The dominance of Thomas Aquinas indicates a success of 
this ambition in regard to theology, at least. The Domini- 



Middle Ages 331 

cans thus became the guardians of orthodoxy; while the 
Franciscans, with their work among the poor, their demo- 
cratic sympathies and tendencies, were rather the parents of 
new doctrines and new practical tendencies. The fact that 
these bodies were preeminently preaching orders, as previ- 
ous orders had not been, called for a higher degree of intelli- 
gence and for more definite training. Hence these friars 
became educators, in a double sense ; first, in that they gave 
a more general_education to all their members than any pre- 
vious monastic order; second, in that, as preachers, they were 
teachers of the people and preeminently preachers of doctrine. 

INFLUENCE OF SARACEN LEARNING. — The history 
of the learning and the educational activities of Mohammedan 
society would take long to narrate, but we are here interested 
in only one aspect of it, — its influence upon the develop- 
ment of education in the West during the later Middle Ages. 
The study of Grecian philosophy, on account of its heretical 
influences, especially in Gnosticism and in the Neoplatonic 
school, had been suppressed in the Eastern Church by the 
time of the sixth century and found a home among the 
Syrians and especially the Nestorian sect of the Christians 
in the region of western Asia. Here it came in contact with 
the Arabs and, after the Abbasid dynasty (750 a.d.), was 
fostered in the capitals of the East. Learned Nestorians 
were summoned to the Saracen courts ; translations into 
Arabic from the Syriac or the original Greek were made ; 
mathematics and the natural sciences, more especially the 
medical sciences, were fostered. During the tenth century 
philosophical interests were similarly developed, especially 
under the leadership of Avicenna (980-1037). In other 
wbrds, at the time when the Christian schools of both Eastern 
and Western Europe were falHng into decay, the schools of 
Bagdad, Basra, Kufa, and other Saracen cities were growing 
into splendid activity and great renown. The character of 



332 History of Education 

this philosophical development, founded as it was upon 
Aristotle, was quite similar to the earlier movement in the 
Christian Church. It sought to substitute for the supernat- 
uralism of the Mohammedan belief a rationalism or a mysti- 
cism similar to that of the Gnostics, and to develop a theology 
as well as a philosophy based upon these later developments 
of the teachings of Plato and Aristotle. Meeting with the 
same opposition from orthodox Mohammedanism that it did 
from orthodox Christianity, learning, both philosophical and 
scientific, was expelled from the East by the less enlightened 
fanaticism of the orthodox masses and sought a home in the 
West among the Moslems of western Africa and of Spain 
where the caliphates, independent of that of Bagdad, had 
been established. It cannot be said that this philosophy and 
learning in general ever affected the masses of the popula- 
tion, or that there was any great creative genius inherent in 
the Arabic mind. But they were quick to assimilate and to 
learn, and skillful in elaborating and adapting Aristotelianism 
to their theology and their scientific knowledge.^ 

In Spain, especially, centering in the school of Cordova, 
from the tenth century on, this learning received develop- 
ment and many brilliant practical applications. Throughout 
their western caliphates the Saracens established libraries, 
higher schools similar to universities and, in connection with 
the mosques in many cities, schools for the instruction of the 
children. While Christian Europe was enforcing as a reli- 
gious belief the idea that the world was flat, the Moors were 
teaching geography from globes. When the Christians 

^ For a fuller convenient outline of Saracen learning, see Davidson, History of 
Education, pp. 138-149, and an article by Wallace in Encyclopcedia Britannica ; 
for its influence on philosophy, see Uberweg, Histoty of Philosophy, Vol. I, pp. 
402-428; for its relation to Christian theology, see Moeller, History of the Chris- 
tian Church during the Middle Ages, pp. 422-435 ; for its influence on univer- 
sities, see Rashdall, Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, Vol. I, pp. 
351-368; and for the general, scientific, and intellectual character of Saracen 
culture, see Draper, Intellectual Development of Europe, Vol. II, Ch. II. 



Middle Ages 333 

finally conquered the Mohammedans, for want of the knowl- 
edge of any other use, they turned their astronomical obser- 
vatories into belfries. From these Arabs came in the tenth 
or eleventh century the knowledge of Hindoo notation as a 
substitute for the cumbersome Roman method. Knowledge 
of algebra, as well as of advanced arithmetical processes, 
came from a similar source. In medicine, in surgery, in 
pharmacy, in astronomy, in physiology, they added much 
that is now considered elementary. They explained the re- 
fraction of light, gravity, capillary attraction, and twilight ; 
they determined the height of the atmosphere, the weight of 
air, the specific gravity of bodies; they constructed various 
astronomical tables, determined corrections for parallax and 
for refraction ; they invented the pendulum clock ; in com- 
merce, in geographical explorations, in navigation, in im- 
provements in all the arts of life, their culture was far ahead 
of that of the Europeans ; they introduced the use of rice, 
sugar, and cotton, and the cultivation of silk ; they made 
Europe familiar with the use of the compass, of gunpowder, 
and of cannon. /'Thus in many ways the Arab culture served 
as an educational agency to bring the civilization of the West 
to a higher level. 

But it is in regard to the influence on the schools that 
we are more directly concerned. By the twelfth century all 
intellectual vitality had been crushed out in the East, while 
it was in its most flourishing condition in the West. In the 
middle of the twelfth century Raymund, archbishop of 
Toledo, commanded a Jewish scholar to translate the leading 
works on Arabic philosophy into Castilian ; by monks it was 
translated thence into Latin. Shortly after this the Em- 
^peror Frederick II had the commentaries of Averroes and 
other Aristotelian writings translated. Only a brief period 
intervened when, as a result of the Latin conquest of Con- 
stantinople, 1204, the Greek version of Aristotle became 
known and direct translations were made. By the thirteenth 



334 History of Education 

century rigid and narrow orthodoxy had triumphed in Sara- 
cen Spain, and Aristotelianism and Averroeism were driven 
out from their previously flourishing seats to find a new 
home among the Jewish philosophers and in the Christian 
universities. 

Averroeism, at first identified with rationalistic free thought, 
became, as previously had Aristotelianism, reduced to ortho- 
doxy. At least, this was true so far as it was a commentary 
upon Aristotle. With the renewal of nominalism in the four- 
teenth century, the master, upon being given the right to 
incept, took oath to teach no doctrines contrary to those of 
" Aristotle and his commentator Averroes." In this form, 
as well as in the study of medicine and astrology, Arabic 
learning continued to exert an influence throughout the 
Middle Ages, when every spark of intellectual vitality had 
long passed from the Mohammedan population itself. 

FEATURES OF STUDENT LIFE: THE WANDERING 
SCHOLAR. — With the decline of the monastic school in the 
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, with the renewal of the in- 
fluence of cathedral and Church school, and with the growth 
of the universities, student life, now much freer and no 
longer controlled by monastic rule, began to assume, at least 
upon the Continent, a pecuHar form. This feature, which 
at first affected only the university student, but soon became 
characteristic of the more elementary students as well, was 
the custom of migrating from school to school without re- 
maining long in any one community. The friar organizations 
had conferred new dignity upon the customs of begging, 
which for centuries had been considered a virtue in the 
clergy complementary to the virtue of giving in the laity, and 
had added new sanction also to the habit of wandering from 
place to place. The custom of religious pilgrimage and the 
Crusades had rendered this wandering life far more common 
and also more secure ; so the wandering student added but 



Middle Ages 



335 



one more element to the floating population made up of 
friars, pilgrims, merchants, craftsmen, knights, and wander- 
ing Churchmen.^ 

With the founding of the universities and the establish- 
ment of the nations in practically every university, it became 
quite customary for students to travel from university to 
university, finding in each a home in their appropriate nation. 
Many, however, wilhng to accept the privileges of the clergy 
and the students without undertaking their obligations, 
adopted this wandering life as a permanent one. Being a 




The Begging Students of the Middle Ages. 

Century. 



Nuremberg, Fifteenth 



privileged order, they readily found a living, or made it by 
begging. A monk of the early university period writes : " The 
scholars are accustomed to wander throughout the whole 
world and visit all the cities ; and their many studies bring 
them understanding. For in Paris they seek a knowledge 
of the liberal arts ; of the ancient writers at Orleans ; of 
medicine at Salernum ; of the black art at Toledo ; and in 
no place decent manners." 

^ See Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims for contemporary description, and Jus- 
serand's English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages for modern description ; 
also the author's Thomas Platter and the Edticational Renaissance of the Six- 
teenth Century, 



336 Hii>*ory of Education 

Just as the resident s udents were organized into nations, 
so these wandering students were organized into a guild, 
under the patronage of a titular tnagister or patron saint, 
— Golias. Hence they were called goliardi. The typical 
goliards, those who had accepted this life as a permanent 
calling, were riotous, unthrifty, unambitious students, who 
were hangers-on of the higher clergy or who wandered from 
palace to palace of ecclesiastical or lay lords. As such they 
appear in literature, contemporary and modern. They are 
responsible for a considerable literature of Latin songs 
similar in many respects to the songs of modern college 
'^^iH'^nts. 

But soon there appeared a new type of wandering student. 
As the many masters exceeded the demand for university in- 
struction, wandering masters, seeking to attach themselves 
to chantry and parochial schools, became numerous ; and to 
these were added the youth — the scholares vagantes — who 
sought to obtain a knowledge of the arts from these schools, 
and at the same time an easy living. The attractions of the 
world were added to those of the arts for these wandering 
scholars, and soon the cities of the Continent, now since the 
thirteenth century numerous and prosperous, were thronged 
with such students. In the fourteenth and the fifteenth cen- 
tury — the limits of the period cannot be assigned — the cus- 
tom received a further extension. These wandering scholars 
added to their ranks smaller boys, often not over six or seven 
years of age, — ABC shooters they were called, — who ac- 
companied them, ostensibly to acquire the rudiments of 
knowledge and to join the ranks of the older boys, but in 
reality to attend them as servants, to beg their food, to sing 
for money or food, in fact to make their living. Such 
wandering students became so numerous that they necesri- 
tated regulation by municipal ordinance. At Nuremberg, the 
center of German learning and Renaissance influences during 
the fifteenth century, a city ordinance required that such 



Middle Ages 12,"] 

schools should send out only one begging student at a time, 
that his operations should be restricted to a given parish, and 
that he should be identified by the picture of the patron 
saint of the school, carried on the basket in which victuals 
were to be collected. 

NEW TYPES OF SCHOOLS. — The later Middle Ages 
were well supplied with schools, not all of which were domi- 
nated by the Church. For a century before the Reformation 
it is probable that schools were as numeri. :.v and that as wide 
an opportunity for study existed as for ; .enturv -afterward. 
Monastic schools never recovered their ii'iport.- ' ■' 

Renaissance of the thirteenth century. Cathedral •scuooi.- 
that grew into new prominence in the eauy a;..>v'er3ity period 
were insufficient for the demand. Not only secondary but 
elementary education was provided in the fourteenth and 
fifteenth centuries in a much more general way than ever 
before. 

An important and probably the most general class of these 
were the chantry schools. Chantry foundations — the gift of 
property to support a priest in return for prayers for the 
souls of the benefactor and of his family, or for certain stipu- 
lated purposes — were the most common form of benefactions 
to the Church during the later Middle Ages. Thus it hap- 
pened that foundations for priests existed beyond all demand 
for parochial service ; as the religious services required by 
the foundations could occupy but a small portion of time, it 
became customary to stipulate that such priests should teach 
~t\e children of the community. As a matter of course, the 
regulations of these foundations present the greatest varia- 
tions. Some provide for a small number of children, some 
for all comers ; some provide that instruction shall be gratis, 
some permit a fee ; some indicate that the merest rudiments 
were taught, others stipulate that instruction shall be given 
in grammar and the higher branches. In the larger towns, 



338 History of Education 

where chantry and similar foundations were numerous enough 
to support a body of priests under collegiate organization, 
and several priests could be designated as teachers, schools 
sometimes grew up that rivaled in size and in character of 
work the schools of the cathedral foundations. It no longer 
occurs that these schools are controlled by monastic teachers, 
for aside from the mendicant orders, the monks have largely 
ceased their general educational activities. 

Another type of school, yet more free from ecclesiastical 
control, was the guild school. Very commonly did the mer- 
chant and craft guild support priests for the performance of 
all sorts of religious services for their members. Such priests 
saw the child of the guild member received into the world 
with proper religious rites and saw him decently out ; he 
celebrated for him all the sacraments ; frequently he kept 
school. Some guilds established schools of great repute, 
which have had long histories. The Merchant Taylors' School 
of London is probably the most notable. Ordinarily the 
school was but an elementary one, though often it was also 
a grammar school for the children of the guild members or 
for others. Such schools would ordinarily give instruction 
in other subjects than Latin, and frequently before the 
Renaissance came to give instruction in the vernacular. 

With the coalescing of the guild organization and the early 
municipal government, these schools along with many of the 
parish schools mentioned above, became in many commu- 
nities the burgher schools. Such schools were largely con- 
trolled and supported by secular authorities, and in the 
content of their school work better represented the economic 
interests and demands of the citizens. They were often 
taught by priests, though lay teachers became more and more 
numerous. In a similar way private schools, usually of most 
elementary character, more responsive to new economic and 
social demands, sprang up. However irregular these private 
schools were, they yet contributed to the development of 



'Middle Ages 339 

' independent town schools. Clerical inspection was yet al- 
most universal, and the Church through the scholasticus or 
some other episcopal officer or even through the parish 
priest, sought to extend its jurisdiction over both these types 
of schools. 

The tendency toward the establishment of those schools 
was well marked in the Teutonic countries before the Refor- 
mation movement began. In Italy it is doubtful whether the 
municipal or at least secular private schools had ever ceased 
to exist. Certain it was that the early universities sprang 
from such schools where there had been some elementary 
study of Roman law previous to the foundation of Bologna. 
During these later mediaeval centuries such schools, not of a 
university grade yet free from ecclesiastical control and gov- 
erned by secular interests, were quite numerous. 

While this entire subject of secular schools previous to 
the Reformation is a question of controversy concerning the 
interpretation of historical material, it is evident that 
the preparation has been made before the Reformation 
for the secularization of education that was to follow. 

THE NEW LITERATURES as well as new types of schools 
gave expression to the new intellectual interests and social 
demands, and indicated that neither the thought-life nor the 
life of material interests could be restrained within the old 
channels. It is not to be understood that there were no ver- 
nacular literatures before these closing centuries of the Middle 
Ages. In German, Icelandic,, and Anglo-Saxon among the 
Teutonic peoples, and in French, Irish, and Welsh among 
the Celts, not to mention other minor tongues, there was a 
literature covering in a general way the entire dark ages 
from the sixth to the eleventh century. Treating of the 
heroic deeds of their leaders, of the wonderful prowess and 
the petty intrigues of their pagan deities, of Biblical story or 
of the traditions of their race, such literature as that of the 



340 History of Education 

Anglo-Saxon and the old High German is for the most part 
either a preservation of the old Teutonic culture, now being 
committed to written record, that represents the continuation 
of the old in the face of the conquering and hostile Latin 
culture ; or, less frequently, it represents the Latin culture 
of the Christian Church put into vernacular form. 

With the twelfth century, fostered by chivalry and by the 
Crusade movement with its accompanying motives, there was 
developed in court and palace, by bard and minstrel, a wholly 
new literature that finds no parallel and no opportunity for 
expression in the dominant Latin and ecclesiastical culture. 
This literature, technically called the Middle English, the 
Middle German, etc., was an outgrowth similar to that of the 
troubadours of southern and the trouveres of northern France. 
In amorous tale, knightly adventure, daring just or brilliant 
tournament, expressing alike the interest of the court and the 
laity's dislike and suspicion of motive and conduct of monk 
and priest, this literature is the beginning of modern literature 
in its expression of new interests and use of new forms, and 
at the same time a force making for the overthrow of the 
dominance of authority and a channel for the expression of 
heretical views. 

One other type of literature that represents a protest 
against the dominant absolutism and bespeaks the coming 
individualism of the opening of the modern period in the 
fifteenth-century Renaissance was that created by the wan- 
dering scholars. As would be natural to those following the 
profession of scholarship, these wandering protestants against 
the fixed hierarchical despotism of established society used the 
Latin language ; but in this they voiced their disgust for 
the hollow and hypocritical character of the established for- 
malism, and expressed their frank enjoyment of natural 
interests and of forbidden pleasures and even of gross indul- 
gence. Here, for the first time, i's a clear and conscious re- 
turn to the motives of the classical poets, and the themes and 



Middle Ages 341 

attitude of Horace and Ovid are now repeated in a Latin 
poetry very different in form from the old. 

Both of these new types of Hterature are subjects, large 
in themselves, which thus relate to the new intellectual life 
of the people of the later Middle Ages. It is from the new 
vernacular literature that there is to develop the great in- 
fluence, soon no longer connected with the class of chivalric 
nobility alone. In this respect a connection is made between 
the old chivalric education and the new education of the 
Renaissance period. But as yet, however much it may influ- 
ence the general intellectual life, it has no influence upon 
school life and upon education in the narrower sense. 

In a peculiar and intimate manner one of these works of 
the new literature, now of the fourteenth century, expresses 
this connection between the Middle Ages and modern times, 
and hence may be taken as the concrete connecting link 
between the two. This is 

THE BANQUET OF DANTE (i 263-1 321). — It is not with 
Dante as the chief exponent of the spirit life of man, in 
which he is as modern as mediaeval, that we are here con- 
cerned ; but with Dante as an exponent of mediaeval thought. 
In an attempt to explain his own writings and to sum up the 
learning of the times, Dante gives in TJie Banqtiet (^11 Convito) 
aVharacteristic exposition of the ideas, the intellectual life, 
and the meaning of education in the Middle Ages. Written 
probably about 13 10, this treatise contains elements that are 
strikingly modern and others that are typically mediaeval. 
While in a way it aimed to be one of the encyclopedias of 
knowledge so characteristic of the Middle Ages, it did not 
seek to give a summary of facts and events, — the mere ex- 
ternalities of knowledge, — but sought rather to penetrate 
into the meaning of all this and to give an exposition of its 
spiritual significance. This desire to penetrate into the inner 
life, this interest in the subjective, this conception of philos- 



342 History of Education 

ophy and of learning as a means of personal development 
of culture, which is here approached though not fully set 
forth, is modern. Another element that is modern is the 
fact that a large portion of the work (Bk. I, Chs. V-VIII) 
is devoted to the justification of the use of the vernacular in 
this and in other of his works. As each one of the main 
reasons is amplified into a number of points in the most 
minute analytical manner, the form of the argument becomes 
a most striking example of the dominant Aristotelianism, 
although its spirit is a protest against it. The unbounded 
reverence paid to Aristotle, who is constantly referred to 
throughout the treatise as "the master," "the philosopher," 
or simply " he," the one who for Dante was preeminently the 
"master of those who know," together with this method of 
scholastic analysis borrowed from the master and the methods 
of fourfold interpretation (Bk. II, Ch. i), — the literal, the 
allegorical, the mystical, and the anagogical or moral, — all 
these are aspects of the mediaevalism of the great poet. In 
this respect T/ie Banquet becomes a most striking exponent 
of the intellectual life of the Middle Ages. 

In Dante's greatest work, the Divine Comedy, this fourfold 
interpretation is most readily seen. In a literal sense the 
Commedia is a presentation of the rewards and punishments, 
the destiny of man in the hereafter; allegorically, it is a 
presentation of the virtues and vices of the human soul as 
illustrated in concrete examples and in the details of the 
plan; morally, it has as its social, political, and ethical pur- 
poses, the making of worthier citizens, better neighbors, 
nobler men ; mystically, it typifies the struggle of the human 
soul to become free, its growth through sin to holiness, its 
progress from the finite to the divine. In a similar way Tlie 
Banquet is a fourfold interpretation of some stanzas, written 
in earlier life of Beatrice, — now identified with philosophy, 
— in which exposition the entire scheme of the thought-life 
and incidentally of the education of the Middle Ages is set 
forth. 



Middle Ages - 343 

The conception of the universe here presented ( The Ban- 
quet, Bk. II, Chs. III-VI) gives the cosmology, the theol- 
ogy, the psychology, the educational theory, of the Middle 
Ages. 

For the unintelligent the world was a flat disk, around which 
flowed the stream Oceanus, and over which was placed a 
crystal vault, in which were fixed, as in a ceiling, the sun, 
moon, and stars. Beyond this vault lived the gods and 
spirits, and thus the entire universe was composed. But in 
the minds of the intelligent there prevailed a system 
founded primarily on the idea of the Greek philosophers, and 
called the Ptolemaic (see p. 170). This universe as made 
entirely for man is thus described by Dante. With the earth 
as a center the heavens consist of nine huge spheres fitting 
one into the other, which turn one upon the other. To the 
first seven of these spheres are fixed in succession the moon. 
Mercury, Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. As 
the spheres move in one direction the " planets " move slowly 
in the opposite. Beyond the seventh heaven is that of the 
fixed stars ; the ninth is the " crystalHne heavens," or the 
Primiim Mobile, moving with greatest rapidity and impart- 
ing its movements to all the rest. The tenth heaven is the 
EiHpyreuin, or "luminous heaven," which alone, as the abode 
of eternal rest, is without movement. 

"And this is the reason that t\\t Primum Mobile moves 
with immense velocity : because the fervent longing of all 
its parts to be united to those of this tenth and most divine 
and quiet heaven, makes it revolve with so much desire that 
its velocity is almost incomprehensible. And this quiet and 
peaceful heaven is the abode of that Supreme Deity who 
alone doth perfectly behold Himself. This is the abode of the 
beatified spirits, according to the holy church, who cannot 
lie, and Aristotle also seems to think so, if rightly understood, 
in the first of The Heavens and Earth. This is the supreme 
edifice of the universe, in which all the world is included, and 
beyond which is nothing ; and it is not in space, but was 



344 History of Education 

formerly solely in the Primal Mind, which the Greeks call 
Protonce. This is that magnificence of which the Psalmist 
spake, when he says to God, ' Thy magnificence is exalted 
above the Heavens.' " 

This entire explanation of Dante's (Bk. II, Ch. IV), in its 
dependence upon authority, in its attempt to harmonize Greek 
philosopher and Hebrew psalmist, in its allegorical interpre- 
tation of texts, in its arrangement of argument, is typically 
mediaeval. 

The hierarchy of heavenly spheres is paralleled by these 
successive hierarchies of spirits which preside over them. 
" The motive powers of the Heaven of the Moon are of the 
order of Angels ; and those of Mercury of Archangels ; and 
those of Venus are the Thrones, which informed of the love 
of the Holy Spirit, perform their work, that is the movement 
of this heaven filled with love, according to the nature of that 
love." Vergil, Ovid, mediaeval astrology, and the Bible are 
unified in this interpretation. Then follow, corresponding to 
the appropriate spheres, dominions, virtues, principalities, 
powers, Cherubim, and Seraphim ; finally the trilogy is com- 
pleted with the dominance of the Trinity over the Empyreum. 
Thus again are the angels and spirits of the Bible, the ideas 
of Plato, the word of St. John, the gods of classic mythology, 
the mysticism and demonology of the Middle Ages unified and 
interpreted. Thus are explained the stages of development of 
the human soul ; thus, in the impartation of movement from 
the crystalline to the other heavens, and the longing " of 
every particle of the crystalline heaven to be united with 
every particle of the most divine tranquil heaven," the per- 
vading love and unifying tendency, the uplifting influence of 
the love of God. 

But this unity and this interpretation includes not the spirit- 
ual and moral life alone ; it dominates the intellectual, which 
is incorporated in the same general explanation. It is im- 
Dossible in a restricted space to enter into all the intricacies 



Middle Ages 



345 







KKTO " TRiaiNlVM?PHILQSOPHig 

MBjMBIIII ilHiilll— ——^M— —————— M 



The Medieval Curriculum allegorically represented as the Temple 

OF Wisdom. 



of the reasons why, as he states, " he says heaven when he 
means science, and heavens when he means sciences." "To 



346 History of Education 

the first seven correspond the seven sciences of the Trivium 
and the Quadrivium, that is, to Grammar, Dialectic, Rhetoric, 
Arithmetic, Music, Geometry, and Astrology. To the eighth 
sphere, that is, to the starry Heavens, correspond Natural 
Science, called Physics, and the first of sciences called Meta- 
physics ; to the ninth sphere corresponds Moral Science; and 
to the Quiet Heaven corresponds Divine Science, which is 
called Theology." Hence throughout the treatise wherever 
he uses the term heavens or any particular heaven, he is 
referring to the appropriate science, and describing in an 
allegorical way its characteristics and influences. 

The heaven of Venus is compared with rhetoric, because 
it is the most charming of all the sciences, as Venus is the 
brightest of the planets; and because as Venus is now a 
morning, now an evening star, so rhetoric now as oratory 
appears before the face of the speaker, now as literature, 
speaks from a distance. The sun is compared with arithme- 
tic, because it illumines all the other sciences, and because, as 
the eye cannot look upon the sun, so " the eye of the intel- 
lect cannot look upon it; because Number, considered in 
itself, is infinite, and that we cannot comprehend." 

Though but three of the proposed fourteen books, or 
courses at this intellectual banquet, were completed, and 
hence, though a most complete and authoritative summary 
of the learning of the Middle Ages by its greatest genius is 
denied us, yet in the fragment written the spirit of the intel- 
lectual life of the Middle Ages, the spirit that partakes both 
of scholasticism and mysticism, finds one of its clearest ex- 
pressions. It illustrates perfectly this judgment of Federn : 
" There never was a time when so little, and at the same time 
so much, was known as in the Middle Ages, for people 
really knew everything; they had a ready explanation for 
every phenomenon ; very clever explanations they often 
were, but always untested ; whatever was or seemed possible, 
whatever could be made plausible in words, was immediately 



Middle Ages 347 

accepted ; people did not like to doubt, and even the impos- 
sible could be dealt with and accepted as a miracle." 



SELECTED REFERENCES 

I. Books not dealing specially with education but of fundamental 
importance in acquiring an understanding of the period. 

Adams, CiviUzatmt during the Middle Ages. (New York, 1899.) 
Draper, TJie Intellectual Developvient of Eiirope. (New York, 1876.) 
Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire., esp. Chs. 16-20, and 37. 
Hatch, Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages on the Christian Church. 

(London, 1895.) 
Lecky, History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne. 

(New York, 1870.) 
MacCabe, St. Augustine atid his Age. (New York, 1903.) 
MacCabe, Abelard. (New York, 1901.) 
Maitland, The Dark Ages. (London, 1890.) 
Milman, History of Early Christianity. (London, 1883.) 
Mrtman, History of Latin Christianity. (London, 1883.) 
yioxiM(t\-n\,QX'i, The Monks of the West. (New York, 1896.) 
Vool&j Illustrations of Medi(£val Thought. (London, 1884.) 
Sandys, A History of Classical Scholarship. 

Taylor, Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages. (New York, 1901.) 
Townsend, Great Schoolmen of the Middle Ages. (London, 1881.) 

IL Books relating directly to education. 

Compayre, Abelard and the Origin and Early History of Universities. 

(New York, 1897.) 
Cornish, Chivalry, esp. Ch. IIL (London, 1901.) 
Drane, Christian Schools and Scholars. (London, 1881.) 
Emerton, Mediceval Europe, Ch. 13. (New York, 1894.) 
Gaskoin, Alcuin, his Life and his Works. (London, 1904.) 
Laurie, Rise and Constitution of Universities. (New York, 1887.) 
Mills, History of Chivalry, Vol. L Ch. IL (London, 1826.) 
Monroe, Thomas Platter and the Educational Renaissance of the Sixteenth 

Century. (New York, 1904.) 
Montalembert {The Monks of the West). Bk. 18, Ch. iv. 
Mullany. Essays Educational, i and 2. (Chicago, 1896.) 
Mullinger, The Schools of Charles the Great. (London, 1877.) 



348 Histoiy of Educatio7i 

Putnam, Books mid their Makers din^itig the Middle Ages^ pp. 1-144. 

(New York, 1896.) 
Rashdall, Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, 3 vols. (Oxford, 

1895.) The best work upon the subject. 
Robinson, /headings in Eicropean History. (Boston, 1904.) 
West, Alciiin a7id the Rise of Ch7'istian Schools. (New York, 1892.) 
Williams, Education during the Middle Ages. (Syracuse, 1903.) 



TOPICS FOR FURTHER INVESTIGATION 

1. Compare the basis of the disciplinary conception of education in the 
Middle Ages with the basis of the modern conception of education as 
formal discipline. 

2. What relation can you discover between the conception of the de- 
pravity of human nature held throughout the Middle Ages and the attitude 
toward interest in education? 

3. What provisions for literary and intellectual education can you dis- 
cover in the rules of the various monastic orders? 

4. Work out the history of the educational influence of any one particular 
monastery, e.g. St. Gall, Fulda, Reichnau, Monte Cassino, etc. 

5. Work out the educational influence of any one monastic order, es- 
pecially of the mendicant orders in any one country ; eg. the Franciscans 
or Dominicans in England. 

6. To what extent could the duty of copying manuscripts furnish 
education to the monks? 

7. Trace the development of the conception of the Seven Liberal Arts. 

8. What was the content of the Seven Liberal Arts as presented by any 
one writer? E.g., Alcuin, Rabanus Maurus, etc. 

9. What similarity exists between the symbolism in education in medi- 
aeval ages and that of modern times? 

10. What connection do you find between the chivalric education and 
the conception of education of modern times, later discussed under the 
head of social realism? 

11. What connection between these two and that modern view which 
holds that the chief function of college education is to produce the character 
of a " gentleman of leisure and of culture " ? 

12. Work out in detail the education of a page or of a squire. 

13. What educational value can you discover in the study of dialectic as 
pursued by the Schoolmen? 

14. Which of the two methods of scholastic study possessed the greater 
educational value ? Why ? Which possessed the greater social value ? Why ? 



Middle Ages 349 

15. Compare a day in the life of a university student in a mediaeval uni- 
versity witli one in tlie life of a modern university student, with an attempt 
to discover the educational value of the activities of each. 

16. Select some of the questions debated by the Schoolmen, and indicate 
the educational value to be derived from their study. 

17. Study in detail the life of any one of the great Schoolmen, and from 
his teachings and v^'ritings indicate its educational significance. 

18. Work out in detail the nature of the nations, the development of the 
faculty, tKe course of study of any one mediaeval university. 

19. Describe the influence of the friars on the life of any one mediaeval 
university. 

20. Describe in greater detail the influence of Aristotle on the medieval 
university. 

21 . Trace the influence of the Saracens on any one subject of study dur- 
ing the later Middle Ages. ( See the general historical material relating to 
the early histories of universities.) 

22. Describe the life of the wandering scholar as given in the autobi- 
ography of Thomas Platter or of Johannes Butzbach. 

23. Describe the beginnings of the secular schools of any one country 
during these later mediaeval centuries. 



^Chronological Table of Educational Development from the 
Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Century 



Political 


LiTFRARV Men 
AND Scientists 


Religious 


Educators and 


Educational 
Events 


Events and 


Events and 


Educational 


Personages 


Personages 


Writings 


1300. 


Marco Polo 


1302. Philip of 


William of Occam 


1343. U. Pisaf. 


I339-I453. One 


1234-1324 


France triumphs 


1270-1347 


1347. U. Prague f. 


Hund.Yrs.'Wari 


flDante . 1265-1321 
i^etrarch 


over Boniface. 


Jean Gerson 


1349. U. Florence f 


Edward III of' 


1312. Suppression 


1363 1429 


1362. Use ol Eng 


Eng. 1327-1377. 


1304-1374 


of Templars 


Paulus Vergerius 


est. in law courts 


1347. Rienzi. 


Boccaccio 


John Tauler 


1349-1420 


1365. U. Vienna f 


1347 9 Black 


1313-1375 


1290-1361 




1384. School at 


Death 


Chaucer 


Wycliffe 




Daventer founded 


1356 Poitiers. 


1328 -1400 


1324-1384 




1386. U. Heidelberg 


1356. The Seven 




1309-1377. Baby- 




f 


Electors estab- 




lonian Captivity. 




1387. Winchester f 


lished by charter. 




1387-1417. The 




1392. U. Erfurt f 


I350-I500- Hansa 




Great Schism. 




1397-1400. Chryso- 


League. 




1384. Breth. Com. 
Life f. 




loras teaches Greek 
at Florence 


1400. 


Lorenzo Valla 


1414. Council of 


Vittorino da 


1428. Vitterino 


1431. Joan of Arc 


1407-1457 


Constance. 


Feltra 1378 1446 


establishes school 


burned. 


Leonardo Bruni 


1418. Council of 


Cosimo de Medic 


at Mantua. 


1453. Fall of 


1369 1444 


Basle, 


1389-1446 


1440. Eton founded. 


Constantinople. 


Pico da Mirandoia 


1415. John Huss 


Wessel 1420-1495 


1455. First book 


1455-1485 War 


(1463-1494) and 


burned. 


Hegius 1420 1495 


printed 


of Roses. 


the Platonic 


Thomas a Kempis 


Battista Guarino 


1458. Greek taught 


1474-1509. Ferdi- 


Academy. 


1380 1472 


1434 1460 


at Paris. 


nand and 


Leonardo da 


Savonarola 


John Reuchlin 


1460 New learning 


Isabella of Spain 


Vinci 1452-1519 


1452-1498 


1455-1522 


at Heidelberg. 


1494 Charles VlII 


Raphael 




Jacob Wimpfel- 


1494 First chair of 


of France in 


1485-1520 




ing 1450-1528 


" Poetry " in N. 


Italy. 






1452. Pope 


Europe (at Erfurt). 


1498-1515. Italian 






Pius II., 


1496. Humanism in 


wars of Louis XI. 






De Libei-orum 


city schools of 


1462-1505. Ivan 






Educatio7ie. 


Nuremberg. 


the Great. 






Colet 1456 1519 
Linacre i46o-ic;24 
Wm. Lilly 

1468-1522 




1500. 

1520. Magellan / 
circumnavigates 


Erasmus 


Luther . 1483-1546 


Erasmus 


1502. University of 


1457-1536 


1517. Luther's 


1467-1536 


Wittemberg founded. 


Michael Angelo 


Theses. 


Thomas More 


1510-1513 Erasmus 


the globe f 


1475-1564 


1521. Diet at 


1478 153s 


leaches Greek at 


1524. Peasants' ;' 


Ariosto 1474-1533 


Worms. 


Rabelais 


Cainbridge. 


War. i 


Copernicus 


1535. Suppression 


1483 155311510 St Paul's f. 


Henry VIII [ 


1473-1543 


of monasteries 


Melanchthon 


1519 Erfurt and 


1509-1S4V 


Tycho-Brahe 


in England. 


1497 1560 


Leipzig 


1533. Reb. of \ 
Geneva. ' 


1546-1601 


1540. Jesuit 


Trotzendorf 


reorganized on 


(Shakespeare 


Order founded. 


1490-1556 


humanistic basis. 


Edward VI 


1564-1616 


1538. English Act 


Vives . 1492 1540 


1524. First Protes- 


1547-1553 


Kepler 1571-1630 


of Supremacy. 


Sturm 1507-1589 


tant City Schools. 


Elizabeth 




1545-1563 Coun 


Ascham 15 15 1568 


1524 Luther's 


1558-1603 




cil of Trent 


Montaigne 


Address to 


1588. Spanish 




i^wiiigli 1484-1531 


1533 1592 


German Cities 


Armada. 


i 


JKnox . 1505 1572 Peter Ramus 


1526. Melanchthon 




i 


4':alvin . 1509-1564 


1515-1572 


opens gymnasium 






1542. Inquisition 


Michael Neander 


at Nuremberg. 






introduced 


1525-1595 


1528. Saxony 






1553. Servetus 


1571. Ascham's 


School Plan. 






burned. 


Schoolmaster. 


1537. Sturm's 






1555. Peace of 


1531. Elyot's 


School founded. 






Augsburg 


Goveniouf, 


1540 Jesuit order f 






1572. St. Bar- 


first work in Eng 


1559 Wiirtemberg 






tholomew's 


on educatio.i. 


School Plan ; first 






massacre. 


\Iulcaster 


sys. of Pub. Sch. 






1598. Edict of 


1531-1611 


1599. Final form of 






Nantes. 


Vlulcaster's 


Jesuit Ratio 






Positions 1581 


Studiorum. 



3.SO 



CHAPTER VI 

THE RENAISSANCE AND HUMANISTIC EDUCATION 

What the Renaissance Was. — The Renaissance of the 
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries brought radical changes 
in educational practice similar to those in the intellectual 
life. The view of education which found no worthy aims 
or interest in this hfe except as they v/ere connected as 
a preparation directly with the life to come, which looked 
upon^'^chooling as a discipline merely introductory to this 
greater discipline of life, which limited instruction to the 
training of the mind in a few activities and those not the 
highest, gave way during the fifteenth and sixteenth cen- 
turies to a conception of education entirely different. This 
new view contained the germs of all modern educational de- 
velopment. As the appropriate subject-matter of education, 
the new education opposed to the old a radically different 
interpretation of Greek philosophy. It rejected the meta- 
physics of Aristotle in favor of his physics ; it exalted Plato 
above Aristotle and found a place for the literature of the 
Romans and of the Greeks as expressive of the best that is 
in man, in humanity, and in nature. In its method the new 
absolutely rejected that attitude of mind characteristic of the 
old, which drew authoritative deductions and hence all knowl- 
edge from conceptions which, though they might be estab/ 
lished by ecclesiastical authority or scholastic traditions, were 
mere assumptions. In its form the new education declined to 
express itself in or be bound by the stiff, formal, and even 
crude Latin of the Church and of the school, but aspired to 

3Si 



<s. 



352 History of Education 

"tti'ie freedom, the expressiveness, and the beauty of classical 
-literatme. 

The new conception of education resulted from a profound 
social change, the causes of which were numerous and far- 
reaching. The logically perfect systems of education which 
dominated the Middle Ages, whether for the monk, the cleric, 
or the secular leader, were unstable because of their very 
perfection. In their completeness they permitted no change, 
no progress ; they made no provision for the individual. 
While the monastic life furnished a moral discipline, it pro- 
vided for no progressive application in life of power when 
developed, since the monk was separated from the world ; 
hence the tendency to fall away from higher ideals and the 
inability of such standards to meet developing needs. The 
perfected system of gJilyaJry gave no place to the common 
man that could be tolerated for long, nor did it offer possi- 
bility of attainment to nor require obligations from the higher 
classes that could be satisfactory even for a time. Scholasti- 
cism had constructed an elaborate and perfected system of 
thought which fettered the intellect, though from its subject- 
matter such glimpses of freedom were gained as together 
with the power gained from the intellectual activity were 
soon to prove instrumental in bringing about its overthrow. 
These structures of thought, erected with so much labor as 
palaces in which to dwell, proved to be but prisons ; and as 
the architects completed the edifice, those for whom they were 
designed overthrew what they saw to be symbols of their 
slavery. Yet from the debris of these edifices the succeed- 
ing generation laid the foundations of the structure of modern 
thought. The completion of the Crusade movement in the 
.fourteenth century saw the destruction of the contentment of 
the- people under the rigid system of scholastic thought and 
the p^erfected control of ecclesiastical organization ; the uni- 
versiti6^s stimulated the zeal for the intellectual life ; the grow- 
ing cities, with their industries and their commerce, furnished 



Renaissance and Humanistic Educatio7t 353 

the opportunity for the development of those economic inter- 
ests which are fundamental in modern hfe and for the accu- 
mulation of that wealth and power which was to reproduce, 
at least in north Italy, the city states of the classic type of 
Greece ; the invention of gunpowder made it possible for 
the common man to challenge the power of any authority 
dependent on physical prowess ; while the printing press 
opened up the treasures of Greek and Roman thought and 
achievement to every one seeking light and truth. 

Thus the unity of mediaeval thought, as the historical 
development of the time reveals to have been the case with 
the similar unity of life, ultimately broke up into the multi- 
ple interests and activities characteristic of modern times. 
Thought lost its unified or corporate character. Education 
ceased to find its aim in such an adjustment of the individual 
into a perfected scheme of thought and action that he lost his 
individuality and found expression only through the institu- 
tionalized whole. In place of this there developed in the 
greatest variety of forms that individualism which is so char- 
acteristic of the early Renaissance, and which renders it diffi- 
cult to express either the intellectual traits or the educational 
practices of that period in terms other than those of personal 
characteristics. The extreme individualism remained typical 
only of the earlier period and soon crystallized itself socially 
into movements, and educationally into types of schools. 

Though the activities of the Renaissance were most varied, 
they may be summed up in three general tendencies, repre- 
senting three great interests alm.ost unknown during the 
Middle Ages, and opening up to the student three worlds or 
aspects of life that had for many centuries remained almost 
unknown. The first of these new worlds was the real life of 
the past, — the life of the ancient Greeks and Romans who had 
possessed infinitely more varied interests, and consequently a 
wider knowledge of life and of its possibilities than had the 
people of the Middle Ages. The classic ages had expressed 
2 A 



354 History of Education 

this interest by means of a literature and an art incomparably 
superior to any produced during the intervening centuries, — 
centuries which had been not so much ignorant of as indif- 
ferent to them. The second of these worlds was the subjective 
one, the world of emotions, — of the joy of living, of the con- 
templative pleasures and satisfactions of this life, of the appre- 
ciation of the beautiful : an interest in introspective observation 
and analysis, from the aesthetic and human rather than from 
the philosophical and religious point of view. The means to 
such a world as this is through the fullest participation in 
activities and interests of the life around one; the purpose 
of such a study is self-culture and improvement ; the result 
of it is literature and art. Of this world mediaeval thought 
had been wholly ignorant. The third of these worlds was 
that of nature around them, a realm not only unknown to 
the people of the mediaeval centuries, but considered ignoble 
and debasing in its influence on man. 

The first of these great world discoveries led to a wider 
and more intensive study of the Latin and Greek languages ; 
to a devotion to the classic literature of both languages ; to a 
search for the manuscript remains of this literature until this 
quest had brought to light substantially all that we pos- 
sess to-day ; to a passion for the collection of these manu- 
scripts, consequently to their multiplication, and finally 
through the discovery of printing to their general dissemina- 
tion. The mistake should not be made, however, of confusing 
the means of this Renaissance with its cause or with its end. 
The recovery of the classical literature was not the cause, 
for that, as we have noticed, lies far deeper and more remote 
in the whole movement of history and of thought. Nor was 
it the purpose of the Renaissance, even in the case of the few 
notable leaders such as Petrarch, who were possessed by a 
consuming passion for the recovery of the works of the 
ancients. These books were merely means to that culture, 
that advancement in knowledge and breadth of view and 



Renaissance and Humanistic Education 355 

of experience which made these men the earher leaders ot 
this movement. 

In this recovered hterature the three new tendencies of 
thought previously mentioned find their basis and through it 
they first work themselves out. These tendencies lie at the 
foundation of the various conceptions of education prevalent 
during the following centuries. Opposed to the formal 
Aristotelianism of scholasticism there arose first a Platonism, 
or rather a Neoplatonism, that was wholly contradictory to 
every aspect of accepted thought and that expressed itself 
most thoroughly in the earher stages of the Renaissance. 
Starting from the ultra-Platonic development of the last 
stages of Greek thought, it revealed itself in an extreme 
individualism which furnished the philosophical basis of the 
ideal of self-culture and self-development, in the efforts 
toward a purely self-centered education, and in the idea of 
human or collective immortality, or that aspiration to " live 
in minds made better by their presence " as a substitute for 
the heaven of the monastic rules. According to this view of 
life, all knowledge of the world, yes, even all knowledge of Goa, 
was locked up in man's knowledge of himself and was to be 
revealed through contemplation, introspection, self-analysis, 
just as the heaven it contemplated was one of its own crea- 
tion. A second literary revival was that of a purer Aristotle, 
one shorn of much of the Oriental gloss of the Arabic com- 
mentators and one revealed rather in his physics than in the 
fragment of his metaphysics possessed by the Schoolmen. 
Through this Aristotle there was a working back to the point 
of view of the earlier Greek philosophers, concerned as they 
were in the theory of a natural universe rather than in one 
of knowledge or of man, and a working forward to that search 
for the knowledge of reality made by modern science. A 
third phase of this literary revival centered chiefly around 
Latin literature, and was opposed to the scholastic literature 
on account of its inferiority of form. Essentially individual 



356 History of Education 

and concrete, hence aesthetic in its tendencies, the Renaissance 
temper rejected all dealing with abstract conceptions, and 
demanded the concrete, the real, that which appealed to the 
imagination and the heart, even though it was no more than 
the beauty of literary form alone. While all of these tenden- 
cies were apparent from the first, and while no definite 
schools represent this analysis of thought tendencies, yet the 
Platonic and individualistic tendency was characteristic of 'the 
fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries ; the inductive Aristo- 
telian and scientific aspect did not become dominant until the 
seventeenth; while the Ciceronian literary phase was virtually 
in control during all the intervening period. 

We have spoken of all of this as a result of the discovery 
of the first of the Renaissance worlds — that of the ancients. 
In reality, what has been mentioned as the outcome of the 
revival of the scientific works of Aristotle and of the early 
Greek philosophers, while it was but one aspect of the world 
of ancient thought, led to this discovery of the world of 
nature. Through the beliefs and methods of the Greeks, the 
Renaissance students were led to direct observation and ex- 
perimentation with natural phenomena, and through that to 
geographical discovery and exploration both by land and sea, 
and to those astronomical discoveries that were to become 
the basis of modern scientific thought. Thus this aspect of 
Renaissance thought led in time to a modification of all 
aspects of thought, and connects directly with the work of 
Bacon and Descartes in the seventeenth century and with the 
physical and biological investigations of modern science. The 
combination of the first and second of these great world dis- 
coveries, the world portrayed in classical literature and the 
world revealed by introspective analysis of the emotional life, 
led to the production of art and literature, including poetry, 
the drama, and romance, to an interest in new motives as 
revealed in history and in contemporary life, and conse- 
quently to the formulation of the historical and social sci- 



Renaissance and Hu7na7iistic Education 357 

ences. While at first this development seems to be through 
the exclusion of the previously absorbing religious interest, 
yet during the sixteenth century it again becomes dominantly 
religious, but now on a humanistic rather than on a scholastic 
basis. 

While all of these changes influenced educational ideals 
and practices and are operative in the formation of all 
modern conceptions of education, a full presentation of their 
meaning belongs rather to the history of the human intellect 
and of human society than to the narrower field of the his- 
tory of education. Nevertheless, a brief historical sketch of 
the progress of the Renaissance is desirable as a basis for the 
discussion of the strictly educational bearing of the revival, 
since no great historical movement has ever been so thor- 
oughly educational in its character. 

The transition from the old learning to the new was not an 
abrupt one ; the clear definition of the new spirit came about 
very gradually. Even its triumph did not involve the dis- 
appearance of the old spirit. Both in educational interests 
and in those wider ones involving the human intellect and 
the human spirit, old methods of thought as well as old ideas 
and ideals continued active for many centuries ; in fact, 
they have persisted even to the present day. But the domi- 
nant thought, that which gives character to the period, soon 
came to be that aroused by the new knowledge. 

THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY.— As the political, reli- 
gious, and intellectual life of the times centered in Italy, so 
also did the Renaissance movement. The period was the latter 
half of the fourteenth and all of the fifteenth century. The 
causes of this movement, as discoverable in the influence of 
the universities and the intensity of the intellectual activity 
of the thirteenth century, have been mentioned previously. 
The personal connecting link is found in Dante (i 264-1 321), 
whose partly mediaeval, partly modern, spirit has already 



358 History of Education 

been noticed. But the man who earned the title of "the first 
modern man " was Petrarch (i 304-1 374). He it was who 
first broke completely with the mediaeval, who devoted him- 
self to the study of the classics and to a reproduction of the 
classical spirit in literature, both in the vernacular and in 
classical Latin, with such a passion as soon to carry with him 
a great following of the leading minds of Italy. Petrarch 
was the first to choose Cicero as a master. He looked upon 
Cicero and his compeers as living personages. Much of 
Petrarch's epistolary work, the earliest embodiment of the 
new spirit, was imaginary correspondence with these ancient 
authors. So vitally did he seek to enter into their spirit that 
reciprocally their spirit in time became that of the Renais- 
sance. Petrarch himself said that he stood between two 
ages, being the first to look back to the age of Augustine 
and realize all that had been lost, and the first to point out 
the way for its recovery. 

During the later mediaeval centuries a knowledge of the 
Latin classics was not an unknown thing, for the manuscript 
copies of many of these were in existence, and Vergil at 
least was quite well known. But there was little apprecia- 
tion for their beauty as literature, Httle sympathy with the 
interests of the classical times, and little toleration of the 
study of these classics to the detriment of the study of 
dialectic based upon Aristotle, the study of the Sentences 
of Peter the Lombard, and of the patristic and scholastic 
literature in general. Against the dominant educational 
ideas of the times, against scholasticism and Aristotelianism, 
Petrarch strove with all his might. With his genius for 
leadership and his power of stimulating enthusiasm, he cre- 
ated a general interest in the classics in direct opposition to 
the ordinarily accepted interests of students, of institutions 
of learning, of the Church and of Churchmen. Petrarch was 
not alone in this; his significance here is merely as a repre- 
sentative of a movement. But he holds a place in the history 



Renaissance and Humanistic Edtication 359 

of education as the first great representative of a new type 
of intellectual life. To-day, when we can readily obtain a 
knowledge of the best that has been thought and done with- 
out going back to antiquity, it is difficult to realize the im- 
portance of this work. At that time there was no vernacular 
literature to speak of, and the human interests of the Greek 
and Latin literatures had been replaced by the narrow 
religious and ecclesiastical interests of the Middle Ages. 
Consequently there is no parallel between the importance 
of the study of Latin and Greek in recent centuries and its 
importance during these centuries of the Renaissance period. 

The Work of Petrarch and his confreres possessed, not only 
this negative value of protest against the restrictive mediae- 
vahsm, the perfectly adjusted world of thought and action, 
but it possessed also the positive merit of emphasizing the 
value of the opportunities of this life for self-development 
through the greatest variety of experiences and efforts 
wholly forbidden by the asceticism and self-abnegation of the 
mediaeval spirit. His writings are the first in modern times to 
reveal the human soul in the whole gamut of passions, suffer- 
ings, and aspirations. Here is first found that attitude of self- 
analysis that becomes a characteristic note in modern literature 
and thought. 

As a reaction against the all-controlling, " other worldli- 
ness " of the Middle Ages, one aspect of this new motive was 
the substitution of the idea of a worldly immortahty which 
later gave rise to that recrudescence of paganism character- 
istic of the Italian Renaissance. In the narrower sense none 
of Petrarch's writings are educational. The more important 
of them are his Sonnets in the vernacular, characterized by 
their introspective emotionalism, which give them an impor- 
tant place in the history of modern literature; his Lives of 
Ancient Men, wherein both the Greeks and Romans become 
alive to modern men ; and his very numerous Letters, wherein 
are revealed the development and the dissemination of the 



360 History of Education 

Renaissance spirit. It is not tlie content of these works that 
gives him a place in the history of education, but this new- 
conception of life and the new spirit and content of educa- 
tion. This second great characteristic of Petrarch also has 
more than individual significance. As in its beginning, so 
throughout its course, the Renaissance in Italy remained 
dominantly personal and individual. Its spirit was that of the 
development and culture of the individual, and had little or 
no interest in the improvement of society in general. It did 
not seek to reform the morals of the time or to remove the 
formalism of the religious life or the narrowness of the politi- 
cal and institutional life. 

Petrarch was an indefatigable student, and possessed the 
power as a scholar of stimulating others. Though he had 
many co-laborers and many successors, to him is directly due 
the revival of classical Latin. 

Co-laborers of Petrarch. — Among the chief of these were 
Boccaccio (13 13-1375), especially notable in literature, and 
Barzizza (i 370-1431), especially notable for scholarship. 
These, with Petrarch, led in the movement for the recovery 
of the classical text, for the multiplication of these manuscripts, 
and for the founding of libraries. In one remaining aspect 
of the educational Renaissance — the recovery of the Greek 
language — Petrarch had little part. In the Hebrew the 
Italians had no interest, but to them was due the restoration 
of the Greek. Even among the Byzantine Greeks of the 
East a knowledge of the classical Greek was a rare thing ; 
and while many travelers and some students had come in 
contact with the contemporary Greeks and a few of the 
Byzantians professed to teach Greek in Italy, the first real 
teacher of the classical Greek in the Western world for many 
centuries was Manuel Chrysoloras (d. 1415). From 1397 to 
1400 Chrysoloras lectured at the University of Florence and 
later at other cities of Italy. Many flocked to his tuition ; 
other Greek teachers followed his example ; Greek manu- 



Renaissa7tce and Humanistic Education 361 

scripts were brought over in great numbers ; Greek grammars 
were written for Latin students ; and shortly there was given 
to the Western world a new language and a whole literature, 
of infinitely greater wealth than that possessed, whether of 
classical Latin, of patristic and mediaeval Latin, or of the 
vernacular. 

By the time the Renaissance movement had reached its 
zenith in Italy and had begun to pass north of the Alps, the 
classical Latin and Greek languages had been recovered ; 
the largest part of the literature of these languages that we 
now possess had been brought to light, libraries had been 
founded, and the new spirit as well as the new knowledge 
had been firmly established. 

"'7M0DIFIED CHARACTER OF THE RENAISSANCE IN 
NORTH EUROPE. — The later Renaissance period, that of 
the latter half of the fifteenth century and the greater part 
of the sixteenth, was modified in two respects. . By this time 
the movement had run its course in Italy and had begun to 
decline into a formalism Jittle superior to the old ; while, in 
the second place, the movement shifted north of the Alps and, 
though first welcomed by the French, received its greatest 
development among the Teutonic peoples. In the South the 
new learning tended to lose its^wide interest in nature and in 
life, as well as the intensity of its belief in personal develop- 
ment, and to concentrate in the mere formal study of litera- 
ture, until, on the educational side, it degenerated into that type 
later to be mentioned as " Ciceronianism." With the transfer 
to the North the change in spirit was even more significant ; 
in one respect it was a narrowing, in another it was a broaden- 
ing tendency. The early_^mo.y^^ment in the South was a most 
pronounced emphasis on individualism. '"^ne new learning 
was esteemed chiefly as a means of self-culture ; through it 
individual opinion was to find freedom, individual appreciation 
to find means of expression, individual judgment to find scope 



362 History of Education 

for exercise. The Italian Renaissance concentrated itself in 
the recovery of the literature of Greece and Rome as a means 
to these ends, since personality had never been so exalted as 
during the periods when these literatures were produced, or 
at least had nowhere else found such adequate expression. 
This the Northern nations did not get ; among them the 
aesthetic element of the movement even as regards literature 
was comparatively undeveloped. There was not the broad 
interest in life, in its possibilities and in its opportunities for 
personal development ; in its pleasures and its legitimate inter- 
ests aside from the practical, that is, religious and social 
ones ; little or none of that interest in the investigation of 
nature and of hfe in the past that so characterized the ear- 
lier period. Erasmus, who represents the later movement, 
as Petrarch did the earlier, had none of these. Since the 
archaeological, aesthetic, philosophical interest of the early 
movement were for the most part expressions of self-culture, 
as well as means of personal development, there was compara- 
tively slight attention to them. 

While in the North the movement was a narrower one so 
far as it relates to personal development, it was infinitely 
broader in another respect, — in that it resulted in social reform 
and improvement. In the South the movement was aristo- 
cratic ; in the North, until late in the sixteenth century, it 
was democratic. All of the early leaders were social or 
religious reformers, and with them the Renaissance movement 
fused with the Reformation movement. With Erasmus the 
interests that determined his career in life, the side of every 
controversy that he chose, and the selection of classics to be 
edited or translated were all determined by one aim. This 
was to remove the common ignorance, to root out the gross 
evils of Church and State, to condemn the selfishness, greed, 
and hypocrisy of all who used the cloak of their ofifice, whether 
in government, in university, in monastery, or in Church, to 
prey upon the ignorance and superstition of those committed 
to their care. 



Renaissance and Himtanishc :iZiion 363 

As another example of this Teutonic tendency, take Jacob 
Wimpfeling, the great humanistic educator of Roman Catholic 
Germany. He asks, " Of what use are all the books in the 
world, the most learned writings, the most profound research, 
if they only minister to the vainglory of their authors, and 
do not, or cannot, advance the good of mankind ? Such bar- 
ren, useless, injurious learning as proceeds from pride and 
egotism serves to darken understanding and to foster all evil 
passions and inclinations ; and if these govern the mind of an 
author, his works cannot possibly be good in their influence." 
All of Wimpheling's work was founded on the basal principle 
that " the better education of the young is the foundation of 
all true reform, ecclesiastical, national, and domestic." Thus 
it was with most of the humanists of North Europe. All such 
evils were based upon ignorance ; hence the Renaissance in 
the North, became more emphatically educational from this 
general social point of view, yet narrower so far as concerned 
the elements entering into the ideal of personal character. 
The broader interests of the earlier period had led to a freedom 
of opinion and to a license in action that was quite foreign to the 
character and piety of the German people. In the north action 
led to an emphasis on the moral and religious bearing of the 
new learning, and to a fusion with the Reformation cause. 
Whether necessary or not, the outcome certainly was a restric- 
tion of the educational ideal in scope, and a limiting of the 
function of individual judgment and of the right of personal 
development to religious rather than intellectual lines, and to 
the elimination for the vast majority of people of important 
elements of this ideal as formulated in the earlier period. This 
cannot be said to be true of all of the leaders — of Erasmus, 
for example ; but Erasmus was fighting all his life, not only 
against the abuses in Church and State based on ignorance 
and selfishness, but also against this narrowing tendency of 
the new learning, in literature, in education, in religion, in 
interest in nature, and in the bearing of learning on the broad, 



1* 



364 History of Education 

practical aspects of life. The intellectual spirit, which was the 
essential feature of the Renaissance, prevailed largely during 
the first century of the movement in the North. But after 
the time of Erasmus most of this spirit of criticism of author- 
ity, of toleration of personal opinion, of investigation and re- 
search into the ideas of the ancients and into the rationality 
of beliefs and practices, of interest in the processes of nature, — 
all gave place to an intellectual formalism scarcely more tol- 
erant than the mediaeval. By the time this formalism fully 
established itself, the Renaissance period as usually delimited 
was passed. But so far as schools were concerned, the old 
scholastic spirit had scarcely given way to the new before that 
was replaced by the new formalism, hardly more tolerant 
than the old. The great difference was that educational 
formalism was now founded on literary and linguistic instead 
of upon logical and dialectic studies. 

THE EDUCATIONAL MEANING OF THE RENAISSANCE 
(a) The Revival of the Idea of the Liberal Education. — The 
devotion to the study of the classical literatures became not 
only the chief outward manifestation of the Renaissance 
spirit, but these literatures also furnished the chief means in 
developing the new life. The new aspirations for the devel- 
opment of free moral personality, defined on both the intel- 
lectual and the emotional sides as well, found little basis in 
the immediate past and little encouragement in the imme- 
diate present ; but the life of the ancients as portrayed in 
their literature furnished both. The Renaissance was not a 
direct attempt to reestablish the ideas and the life of the 
ancients, but in many respects it became an imitation, 
because the formulation of certain aspects of life by the 
ancients could not be improved upon, and some could not 
well be modified to conform to the needs of the fourteenth 
and fifteenth centuries by those of so meager experience and 
outlook as had the men of that time. A most important 



Renaissance and Humanistic Edudation 365 

phase of this -x^'-i P^-^'as the restoration of the idea of the 
liberal education as formulated by the Greeks and adapted \ 
to the Romans by Cicero, Quintilian, Tacitus, and others? 
Educationally, the Renaissance often seems to have been 
merely a devotion to the study of the literary classics and to 
the linguistic study necessary as a preparation ; but this is 
not the heart of the matter, at least during the earlier period. 
The great desire was for a new life and, in this respect, for 
a new education, hostile to the old, dogmatic, restrictive, 
pedantic scheme of scholasticism. This ideal revealed itself 
in the liberal education as formulated by the ancients, though 
its immediate application was an individualistic one rather 
than one giving its social implications. 

Both the earlier and the later Renaissance periods were 
quite prolific in treatises on education ; those of the earlier 
period, not only revive the liberal idea, but even define educa- 
tion in the same terms as those used by Plato, by Aristotle, 
or by Quintilian. The aim of education is always conceived 
as that of producing the perfect man fitted for participation 
in the activities of the dominant social institutions. The 
ideal, while individualistic, is as clearly distinguished from 
the narrow practical aim of individual success as a citizen, 
and from the other extreme of a life of isolation spent in 
mere contemplation of the good as it is from the prevailing 
formal disciplinary education of the scholastics. The edu- 
cated men of the past who were held up as ideals were 
Demosthenes, Aristotle, Caesar, Pliny, and above all Cicero. 

Formidation of the Aim. — Some of the formulations of the 
purpose of education by these early educators are of great 
interest and value. Paulus Vergerius (i 349-1420), a pro- 
fessor in the University of Padua, wrote a treatise on educa- 
tion about 1374 which was widely influential and even widely 
used as a text in schools, in which he formulated the concep- 
tion of education as follows: "We call those studies liberal 
which are worthy of a free man; those studies by which we V 



366 History' - ^J T-/f2i^,^. \ 

attain and practice virtue and wisdom ,-,i"g2j|j f^-^ .on which 
calls forth, trains, and develops those higuest gifts of body 
and of mind, which ennoble men and which are rightly judged 
to rank next in dignity to virtue only." To distinguish it 
from a purely practical education, which, owing to the 
revived economic interests of the times, was competing with 
the liberal idea in the struggle with the dominant scholasti- 
cism, he adds : " For to the vulgar temper, gain and pleasure 
are the one aim of existence ; to a lofty nature, moral worth 
and fame." The major part of all of these numerous treatises 
on education is naturally devoted to a discussion of the sub- 
ject-matter and the method of education, since the aim or 
purpose can usually be indicated in a word or two from PlaJ;a 
or Cic^o, while it is in respect to content and method that 
the new education presented a visible contrast with the old. 
It has been noticed, previously, that while Plato defined the 
aim of education in terms of knowledge and Cicero in terms 
of eloquence, meaning knowledge of content and of form of 
literature, much more was indicated by these terms than is 
now connoted. Both terms which now would indicate for 
the most part the receptive or even' formal side of educa- 
tion then included the expression side as well. During the 
early Renaissance period this expression side was even wider 
than that indicated by efficiency in writing or speaking, since 
at that time these powers stood for that effective participa- 
tion in the affairs of the times that is now represented by the 
differentiated activities of all of our learned professions and 
by the public press. This is the meaning contained in the 
following paragraph from the essay of Lionardo D'Arezzo on 
the study of literature, written about 1477 to a noble lady. 
Even to women, this study of literature is to mean more than 
mere acquaintance with or knowledge of classical writings. 

" That high standard of education to which I referred at the 
outset" (illustrated by reference to a number of learned 



Renaissance and Humanistic Education 367 

women, who had participated in public affairs, such as 
Corneha, Sappho, Aspasia) " is only reached by one who 
has seen many things and read much. Poet, Orator, Histo- 
rian, and the rest, all must be studied, each must contribute 
a share. This learning thus becomes full, ready, varied, and 
elegant, available for action or for discourse in all subjects. 
But to enable us to make effectual use of what we know, we 
must add to our knowledge the power of expression. These 
two sides of learning, indeed, should not be separated ; they 
afford mutual aid and distinction. Proficiency in literary 
form, not accompanied by broad acquaintance with facts and 
truths, is a barren attainment; whilst information, however 
vast, which lacks all grace of expression, would seem to be 
put under a bushel or partly thrown away. Indeed, one may 
fairly ask what advantage it is to possess profound and 
varied learning if one cannot convey it in language worthy 
of the subject. Where, however, this double capacity exists, 
— breadth of learning and grace of style, — we allow the high- 
est title to distinction and to abiding fame," 

The same idea clothed in different words, probably more 
acceptable to present educational thought, is given by ^Eneas 
Sylvius, later Pope Pius II, in his tractate on The Liberal 
Education, published 1475, where he sums up the aim of 
such study in terms of cJiai'acter, " our one sure possession." 
But character is to be obtained through study of philosophy, 
letters, and by religious nurture. " Eloquence is a prime 
accomplishment in one immersed in affairs." We must learn 
to express ourselves with distinction, with style, and in a 
manner worthy of our subject. Consequently "Grammar, it 
is allowed, is the portal to all knowledge whatever," and 
therewith he outhnes the usual literary education of the 
Renaissance leaders. 

T/ie Nciv Elements in Education. — One very important 
aspect of the Renaissance education, but not to be conveyed 
in the words of the leaders without very extended quotation, 
is the inclusion in the ideal and practice of education of 
elements common to the classical period, but altogether 



368 History of Education 

excluded from the mediaeval. The first of these is the physi- 
cal element. In quite a number of these treatises, there is 
elaborate presentation of the reasons for physical training 
and of the methods and forms of exercise appropriate 
thereto. 

" It will thus be an essential part of your education that 
you be early taught the use of the bow, of the string, and of 
the spear ; that you drive, ride, leap, swim. These are honor- 
able accomplishments, and therefore not unworthy of the 
educator's care. Games, too, should be encouraged for young 
children, — the ball, the hoop, — but these must not be rough 
and coarse, but have in them an object of skill. Such relaxa- 
tions should form an integral part of each day's occupation, 
if learning is not to be made an object of disgust." 

This is from the same source last quoted, and though 
written for a prince, expresses an ideal common to most of 
these expositors. Similarly, questions of diet and of hygiene 
are also included. This emphasis was quite impossible in the 
preceding period, aside from the chivalric education, and, it 
must be confessed, again soon becomes almost as foreign. 
Accompanying this emphasis upon the physical element is a 
similar one upon matters of conduct and behavior. In these 
respects the early Renaissance education represents a fusion 
of the chivalric education and the literary education with a 
result much superior to that which was obtained in the pre- 
ceding or succeeding ages. These, along with the idea that 
literary training should not be of that contemplative character 
that would lead to lack of interest and want of power in prac- 
tical life, are aspects of their thought of education as a train- 
ing in effective citizenship. The production of this practical 
judgment in everyday affairs was one of the chief purposes 
of the new education, however Hterary it might be. Hence 
the moral element receives a new emphasis, different from 
that of the mediaeval spirit, where the moral was fused with or 
even limited to the relig-ious and theological element. It was 



Renaissance and Humanistic Education 369 

also wholly distinct from and superior to that characteristic 
feature of the outcome of the Renaissance in Italy, where 
there was a tendency toward the elimination of the moral 
element as developed by Christianity in favor of the license 
prevailing during the later periods of Grgeco-Roman life and 
expressed so freely in their literature. While many Renais- 
sance leaders of State, of Church, and of literature exerted 
such an influence toward lowering of moral standards, the 
consensus of the influence of educational writings and of 
schools is the reverse. This emphasis upon the moral ele- 
ment in education had less of a formal nature than that of 
the previous scholastic and monastic education and more 
of an immediate practical bearing on life than that previously 
fostered by the Church. 

One further element characteristic of the new education 
was the aesthetic. Wholly eliminated from the mediaeval 
education, owing to the dominance of ascetic ideas, it was 
reintroduced as the very breath of life of the new move- 
ment. It became the most characteristic feature of the 
change from the old to the new. It found chief expression 
in the study of literature and became a dominant feature of 
the work of the schools under the titles of Grammar and 
Rhetoric. This application of the importance of the manner 
of expression, related not only to language but also to various 
other forms of thought, expression, and, as previously noted, 
to conduct and behavior. 

To summarize : The great educational contribution of the 
Renaissance was the recovery or reformulation of the concep- 
tion of the liberal education, which included the physical, the 
aesthetic, the moral, the literary and social, as well as the 
abstract literary, theological, and ecclesiastical elements. 
This education aimed at the development of the free man 
possessing individuality of his own, and power of efficient 
participation in everyday life, based upon a wide knowledge 
of life in the past and an appreciation of opportunities of life 



370 History of jZdzication 

in the present. At its best it demanded that such a man 
should possess, as the evidence of his education, the moral 
purpose to make his knowledge and power of service in the 
needs of his country and the life of his fellow-men. It must 
be admitted, however, that this last feature was due rather to 
the fact that most of these educational treatises were written 
as a guide for the bringing up of children of the nobility, who 
were prospective rulers of petty principalities, and hence that 
this emphasis upon the practical and moral element was not 
so much a social one as one from the point of view of their 
own individual activities and opportunities. 

(6) The Narrow Humanistic Education. — The content of 
this new education, consisting primarily of the languages and 
classical literatures of the Greeks and Romans, came to be 
indicated during this period by the term Jiiunanities. Ont; 
of these earlier writers, Battista Guarino, summing up his trea- 
tise (1459) on this new education, writes as follows :[" Learning 
and training in Virtue are peculiar to man : therefore our fore- 
fathers called them ' Humanitas,' the pursuits, the activities, 
proper to mankind. And no branch of knowledge embraces 
so wide a range of subjects as that learning which I have 
now attempted to describe." This passage hints at the change 
which soon came to pass with tremendous results for educa- 
tion. The interest in the liberal education described in the 
last section was in " the pursuits, the activities, proper to 
mankind," and the literature of the Greeks and Romans was 
merely a means to an understanding of these. Soon, how- 
ever, — that is, by the sixteenth century, — that which was 
at first merely a means came to be considered as an 
/end in itself, and the term Jamianities came to indicate the 
1 languages and literature of the ancients. Consequently the 
1 aim of education was thought of in terms of language and 
J literature instead of in terms of life, and educational effort 
was directed toward the mastery of this literature. That 
portion of these literatures which was superior from the 



Renaissance and Hitmanistic Education 371 

formal standpoint only became the center of educational 
effort, and consequently the formal instead of the content or 
literary side of these writings became of greater importance. 
This change, though a gradual one, resulted in the formulation 
of a type of education distinct from and inferior to this re- 
vival of the liberal education out of which it grew. This 
newer conception was one of far wider application and one 
that has persisted well into modern times. As in popular 
usage the term Jnimanities was narrowed to indicate merely 
the languages and literatures of the two peoples, so the term 
Iiimianistic was narrowed to indicate the type of education 
corresponding to it. Through this usage, not quite exact for 
the term contains the original broader significance as well, we 
are forced to adopt, as following popular practice, the term 
humanistic education, to indicate the narrow linguistic edu- 
cation that dominated European schools from tlie sixteenth 
to the middle nineteenth century. Naturally, considerable 
variation existed in the character of the type, and yet it was 
always much more restricted than the earlier Renaissance 
education. 

Elimination of Elements from the Conception of Education. — 
At its best the narrow humanistic education gave little place 
to the physical, and to the societary or institutional elements ; 
it had little thought of broad preparation for social activity 
through familiarity with the life of the ancients ; it gave no 
place to the study of nature or of society (history) and, at 
first, little even to mathematics, a study which later through 
its formal value conquered a definite place in this scheme. 
The individualism of this education was not so much a train- 
ing in the exercise of personal judgment and of personal 
taste and discrimination, as it was a preparation for a suc- 
cessful career from the purely personal point of view in the 
formal life of the times. This end was gained through an 
education so formal and stereotyped that in time it elimi- 
nated most of those choicer results of the liberal form of the 



372 History of Education 

humanistic education. The only phase of the aesthetic element 
preserved was the study of rhetoric. Education again became 
reduced to the work of the school and that work to the most 
formal character, relating solely to the study of language and 
literature. Since the child began immediately with the study 
of a synthetic language through the mastery of grammatical 
constructions, and since few children untrained have great 
power of literary appreciation or of acquisition, the work of 
schooling must be prolonged for years in its attention to 
the merely structural side of language. Even the literary 
appreciation could be no general attainment, so that for the 
rank and file of children educational work became a drill of 
the most formal and the most laborious character. In the 
universities the same tendencies prevailed that controlled in 
the lower schools. By the seventeenth century the study of 
the humanities was httle less formal and profitless than had 
been the narrow routine of scholastic discussion of the four- 
teenth. Cicero now had become master in place of the 
dethroned Aristotle. 

Ciceronianism. — - At its worst this humanistic education 
became almost inconceivably narrow, and boldly asserted 
itself even as early as the first half of the sixteenth century 
under the name of Ciceroiiianism. The Ciceronians, arguing 
that the aim of education was to impart a perfect Latin style 
and that Cicero was the admitted master of that style, 
held that all work in the school should be confined to the 
study of the writings of Cicero or of his imitators, that all 
conversation and all writing should be carried on in Cicero- 
nian phrase, and, finally, in the words of the Ciceronian contro- 
versialist, "they would discard all subjects that do not admit of 
being discussed in Cicero's recorded words." Against these, 
as represented by numerous Italian and French humanists, 
Erasmus carried on a long controversy and wrote his dia- 
logue on T]ie Ciceronians. In this satire the Ciceronian 
describes his ideal education. For seven years the child is 



Renaissance and Humanisiic Edttcation 373 

to read Cicero and not a single other author, until he has 
practically committed to memory the whole of the master's 
writing and has acquired a Ciceronian vocabulary. In 
order to accomplish this, huge lexicons of words are 
arranged ; others of phrases ; others of the forms of 
introductions and of terminations of periods; others of 
comparative tables of the various uses of words. Letters, 
declamations, conversations for ordinary usage, orations, are 
composed with infinite pains, in the effort to make a living 
language of that which at the time of its creation was no 
more the spoken language than was that of Shakespeare 
during the sixteenth century or of Browning in the later 
nineteenth. However, it served its purpose as the most 
extreme formulation of the purely humanistic disciplinary 
education that was possible. Erasmus combats this from 
the religious as well as from the educational point of view, 
and satirizes it in this summary of the Christian faith. For 
the following brief creed : — 

" Jesus Christ, the word and the Son of the Eternal Father, 
according to prophecy, came into the world, and, having be- 
come man, voluntarily surrendered himself to death, and 
so redeemed his Church, and delivered us from the penalty 
of the law, and reconciled us to God, in order that, justified 
by grace through faith, and freed from the bondage of sin, 
we might be received into his Church, and preserved in its 
communion, might, after this lifej be admitted into the 
kingdom of heaven ; " 

the Ciceronian would substitute 

" The interpreter and son of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, 
our Saviour and our sovereign, according to the responses 
of the oracles, came down to the earth from Olympus, and, 
having assumed human shape, of his own free will sacrificed 
himself for the safety of the republic to the Dii Manes, and 
so restored it to its lost liberty, and, having turned aside from 
us the angry thunderbolts of Jupiter, won for us his favor, in 
order that, through our acknowledgment of his bounty hav- 



374 History of Education 

ing recovered our innocence, and having been relieved from 
the servitude of flattery, we might be made citizens of his 
republic, and having sustained our parts with honor, might, 
when the fates should summon us away from this life, enjoy 
supreme feHcity in the friendship of the immortal Gods." 

While Ciceronianism will be recognized as an extreme, it 
will be seen when we come to examine the types of schools 
dominant during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth 
centuries that, substituting the classical writers in general 
for their one master, — Cicero, — the whole tenor, purpose, 
and method of these schools were but little broader than the 
spirit of the Ciceronians. 

Character of the Narrow Humanistic Education. — The 
narrow humanistic education, then, posited a familiarity 
with the classical literature, or with that portion of it supe- 
rior from a rhetorical point of view, and a writing and speak- 
ing knowledge of Latin as the sole aim of education. Con- 
sequently, the content of education and the subject-matter of 
school work became a prolonged drill in Latin grammar ; a 
detailed grammatical and rhetorical study of selected Latin 
texts, especially of Cicero, Ovid, Terence, with less attention 
to Vergil and some of the historians ; with some study of por- 
tions of the Scriptures, of catechisms and creeds in Latin, or 
of the Epistles in Greek. This command of Latin was per- 
fected through frequent exercise in declamation and the pres- 
entation of the comedies of Plautus and Terence. This was 
supplemented by some attention to Greek and possibly to 
elementary mathematics, and, as a final accomplishment, a 
training in oratory ; that is, a speaking knowledge of Latin 
as nearly classical or Ciceronian as possible. Methods fol- 
lowed the most formal^ grammatical lines, with no appre- 
ciation of the child's nature. He was considered to be a 
miniature man differing from the adult in interests and 
powers of mind only in degree, not in kind. Consequently, 
the child on coming to school was given the task of acquiring 



Renaissance and Humanistic EducatioJi 375 

a foreign language, usually before he had acquired the ability 
to read or write his own, of acquiring this through a formal 
study of grammar and of rhetoric, and of getting this formal 
knowledge through text-books written in the same foreign 
tongue. There resulted a tremendous emphasis upon the 
memorizing powers of the mind, and from the higher formal 
training a keen power in discrimination of forms. All this 
produced a dialectic power little inferior in subtlety and " hair- 
splitting " acumen to that of the Schoolmen. The disciplin- 
ary spirit of such an education was~or~the harshest, because 
of the most formal character. Corporal punishment fur- 
nished the incentive to study as well as to moral conduct — ■ 
not a very secure basis for either. This education, formal in 
its spirit as in its subject-matter, accompanied the return to 
the emphasis upon the formal in life, seen in the intellectual, 
the political, the religious, and the moral life of the seven- 
teenth and eighteenth centuries. 

SOME RENAISSANCE EDUCATORS. — The great educa- 
tors of the Renaissance movement were not necessarily 
teachers, though many of them were. Such leadership was 
quite as frequently exerted through general treatises on the 
new learning or even by a development or stimulation of 
appreciation for literature. It was thus quite outside the 
pale of university or school that the early Italian leaders 
wrought. Intrenched as the old learning was in the educa- 
tional institutions of every grade, the new learning grew 
up in hostility to the old, though in time it found a place 
by conquest of the old. In any educational sketch of the 
Renaissance some of the more prominent of those who reduced 
the new learning to the methods and the purposes of the 
schools must find recognition. 

In Italy the advanced position occupied by Petrarch, 
Boccaccio, Barzizza, yEneas Sylvius, and other humanists has 
been noticed previously. Many of these early humanists, 



376 Histoiy of Education 

whether attached to courts or to universities, possessed but a 
meager income ; consequently, it was their custom to supple- 
ment this by receiving private students into their homes. 
Through such work, rather than through university lectures, 
these men reduced the new learning to definite educational 
procedure, and exercised their greatest influence on their 
times and on education. Both Barzizza and Chrysoloras, 
leaders respectively in the Latin and the Greek revival, 
conformed to this custom, and Guarino of Verona was one 
of the most successful and most famous. A somewhat more 
detailed statement of the work of one of these must answer 
for that of all. 

Vittorino da Feltre (i 378-1446) has been considered as the 
most famous of all these Italian educators, both by his own and 
by succeeding generations. Since none of his writings have 
survived, his reputation depends on the influence of his 
pupils and the traditions of his school. Vittorino was a 
product of the earlier generation of humanists, and had been 
a pupil, or at least had been associated with the three scholars 
just mentioned. He taught privately at Padua and Venice 
and publicly at the university at Padua before organizing 
the school which was to be the means of his great influence. 
In 1428, at the call of the Prince of Mantua, who wished to 
have the dignity of a school of the new learning at his court 
to rival that of the neighboring courts, Vittorino established 
at Mantua the school which he continued until his death. 
This school represented the first thorough organization of 
the new learning for school purposes as distinct from uni- 
versity lectures. The master here gave the Greek idea of a 
liberal education its first modern embodiment, and taught to 
the youth for the first time the literature, history, and civiliza- 
tion of the Romans instead of the mere form of their language. 
Later ages have given Vittorino the title of " the first modern 
schoolmaster." With the children of the court he, in time, 
associated children of his friends and of the neighboring 



Renaissance and Humanistic Education 377 

nobility until the school occupied an entire palace. His aim 
was to make the life of the pupils as pleasant and active as 
possible, so that the schoolhouse was made as termed, " The 
Pleasant House." Sport and games were joined with study, 
aesthetic appreciation was cultivated, and, above all, moral 
and Christian influences were strongly emphasized. While 
the curriculum yet retained the organization of the seven 
liberal arts, literature dominated and dialectic and gram-; 
mar were wholly subordinated. The new purpose repre- 
sented a yet more radical change, for education now became 
a direct preparation for a useful and balanced life in leader- 
ship, in State or Church, a citizenship based upon a knowledge 
of and sympathy for the best in the life of the Greeks and 
Romans. Self-government by the boys of the school, a de- 
pendence upon the natural interests of the pupil, use of the 
natural activities of the child as a basis for much of the work, 
and a strong emphasis upon activities and upon the construc- 
tive side of the work as furnishing an immediate introduction 
into a useful life, were some of the features exemplified in 
this school at Mantua. '. -■ 

Early German Humanists. — Among the early German 
humanists, John Wessel (1420-1489), Rudolph Agricola 
(1443-1485), Alexander Hegius (1420-1495), John Reuchlin 
(145 5-1 522), and Jacob Wimpfeling (1450-1528) possess the 
greatest reputation as educators. All these belonged to the 
order of the Brethren of the Common Life, or had some 
connection with their schools. Their educational importance 
consists rather in what they did for the introduction of the 
new studies and the new spirit among German students than 
for any formulation of educational doctrine or for any work 
in the organization of schools. 

Wimpfeling, who shared with Melanchthon of the next 
generation the title of "preceptor of Germany," united in his 
person all of the functions performed by these other leaders. 
As lecturer and rector at Heidelberg, he did much to make 



378 /History of Education 

that university the center of humanistic learning in the west 
of Germany ; as the author of texts and an adviser in the 
foundation and the conduct of schools, he influenced in a 
practical way the work of instruction ; as a public man, 
he stood for the importance of the new learning to the cause 
of social and religious reform, though always within the 
Church rather than by a break with it ; as a writer of educa- 
tional treatises, he did much to formulate the doctrine of the 
new education. One of these treatises, A Guide to the 
German Youth (1497), is the earhest systematic treatise on 
education by a German. In his exposition of the curriculum 
and method of education, he follows the broader Renaissance 
traditions, advocates a wide selection of Greek and Latin 
texts and a study of their content as well as their form. 
" Let study be for the quickening of independent thought." 
But his exposition does not stop here. He discusses the 
problems of school life, the qualifications of teachers, the 
relation of education to social welfare, and similar topics. 
Education has for him a social and moral aim. " What 
profits all our learning if our characters be not correspond- 
ingly noble, all of our industry without piety, all of our knowl- 
edge without love of our neighbor, all of our wisdom without 
humility, all of our studying, if we are not kind and charita- 
ble } " In Youth (1500) he discusses the ethical basis of edu- 
cation and its general relation to religion. 

Erasmus. — The most famous of all leaders of the new 
learning, the one whose work touched every phase of its 
educational bearing, the one whose influence was confined 
to no country, was Desiderius Erasmus (Gerardus Gerardi). 
Erasmus's long life (1467-1536) was wholly devoted to the 
furthering of the new learning, not so much as a form of self- 
culture, but rather as the most important factor in the much 
needed moral, religious, educational, and social reform of 
the time. As a scholar he probably does not take rank with 
some others of the critical phase of the Renaissance ; but he 



Renaissance and Humanistic Editcation 379 

was the most effective humanist and educator of all these 
centuries. " Of all scholars who have popularized scholarly 
literature, Erasmus was the most brilliant, the man whose 
aim was the loftiest, and who produced the most lasting 
effect over the widest area," is the judgment of Professor 
Jebb. It was in this broader sense that Erasmus was an edu- 
cational leader. All his work was primarily educational ; — 
that is, designed to reform the many abuses in society that 
were the outgrowth of ignorance. Let us see how this was 
accomplished. 

Erasmus's early education was designed to fit him for the 
monastic life. But after a few years of the narrow training 
of the typical monastic school, he was put at his ninth year 
in the famous church school. at Daventer. Through the in- 
fluence especially of Hegius and Agricola, he became imbued 
with enthusiasm for the new learning. Later, in Paris, in 
Oxford, and in Italy, he perfected his knowledge of languages 
and of the literature of the ancients. Throughout his life he 
remained a most indefatigable student, and often denied him- 
self the barest necessities of life to obtain coveted books. 
During his sojourn at Paris and at Oxford, he was a teacher 
of private pupils and became the first teacher of the new 
learning at Cambridge. For many years he led the life of 
the itinerant scholar, at centers of learning in England, 
France, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Italy. For twenty 
years preceding his death he resided at Basle, then one of the 
chief centers of printing. Through his personal correspond- 
ence and his personal intercourse with students and scholars, 
he did even more of the work of instruction than through his 
formal connection with universities. 

But far more than through either of these activities was 
accomplished by his work as a publicist, for few men have 
published more, and no man has seen his writings so widely 
disseminated in his own lifetime. All of his vast labors in 
this line were determined by his dominant educational or 



380 History of Education 

reform motives. He possessed little of the archaeological 
or aesthetic interests of many humanists, and none of the 
dialectic and metaphysical interests of the scholar of the old 
time. Against both of these he wrote, chiefly in the form of 
satire. This satire enters into many of his works, such as 
TJie Praise of Folly, The Colloquies, The Adages, and many 
of his briefer dialogues, such as the one on The Ciceronians 
previously referred to. The Adages were a collection of the 
sayings of the ancients, professing to give a summary of 
their wisdom, but in reality selected and commented upon 
so as to serve as an influence reformatory of existing abuses. 
The Colloquies discussed in dialogue form a general variety 
of topics so as to reveal the current abuses in Church, State, 
family, monastery, and university. These had all reduced 
themselves to ignorance and to abuse of ecclesiastical power, 
so that Erasmus became one of the greatest reformatory forces 
— certainly next in importance to Luther himself. Far differ- 
ent in character, but dominated by the same motives, was his 
work in issuing an edition of the New Testament in Greek, 
the first ever published ; and also a Latin translation of the 
same. Later he edited the works of St. Jerome, some of the 
writings of the Greek fathers, and published paraphrases of 
the books of the New Testament. In all of this work he 
combated the attitude of the scholastic expositors of the 
Bible, based merely on isolated texts, and sought to bring 
about a more correct knowledge of the Scriptures and of the 
attitude of the Church Fathers as contrasted with the medi- 
aeval view. His whole effort was concentrated on giving to 
the public a more accurate and more intimate acquaintance 
with the Scriptures. 

A third aspect of his educational labors is seen in his 
editions of many of the Latin and Greek classics. Here 
again he purposed to give a more accurate knowledge of this 
literature and to make such selections as would expose the 
formality and the corruption of his times. Most important 



Renaissance and Humanistic Education 381 

of these were the editions of Terence, Seneca, Cicero, Sue- 
tonius, and Plautus. 

A work of even greater importance for schools was per- 
formed in the translation or preparation of Latin and Greek 
grammars and of text-books, of which the most famous and 
most widely used was The Colloquies. Since satire on moral 
evils is scarcely the proper form of a text-book for youth, the 
content of these dialogues is such that one may well question 
the advisability of the use of them in schools, but the age 
that spent much time reproducing the plays of Plautus, of 
Terence, and of similar texts could hardly be expected to 
object to the milder presentation of The Colloqines. 

There remains to be mentioned yet one more source of 
Erasmus's influence, — his discussions of educational subjects 
direct. These are found in some of The Colloquies, in The 
Ciceronians, in his Method of SUidy, in his Liberal Education 
of Children. His educationar beliefs — there was no system 
of philosophy — were as follows. The writings of the clas- 
sical authors, the Church Fathers, and the Scriptures contain 
all that is necessary for guidance in this life and for the 
reform of the many existing abuses ; but it is necessary 
to know these in the original and in their uncorrupted form. 
Consequently, the great work of the schools is to study a 
wide selection of these and thoroughly to imbibe their spirit. 
No mere mastery of form is sufficient, nor is a limited 
selection of authors to be allowed. In place of dialectic dis- 
tinctions or obscurities, rhetorical analysis and appreciation 
are to be used. Grammar necessarily forms the basis of all 
school work, but grammar as an intelligent approach to 
literature. Nature, history, and contemporary life are to 
illumine this literary study, as it in turn is to reform society. 
Such knowledge should be disseminated broadly, and should 
be free to women as well as to men. The moral purpose in 
education should ever be emphasized, and a study of religious 
liteiature and participation in religious services should form 



382 History of Educatio7i 

a part of all such training. In a similar way, conduct, be- 
havior, and the amenities of life receive due appreciation, 
though some things which Erasmus emphasizes as principles 
of politeness appear quite ludicrous to the reader of the 
present. The spirit, however, in this respect, is that of the 
best of the Italian Renaissance. The barbarous methods of 
discipline of the times are condemned and more attractive 
methods are commended. A study of the child is advised 
and personal care and direction of his studies insisted upon. 
The function of the mother, the importance of play and of 
exercise, the necessity of keeping education vitally in touch 
with the life of the times, are all recognized. Many details 
of sound method, such as repetition, procedure through the 
mastery of small portions of work, importance of introductory 
studies such as grammar and many similar topics, find expo- 
sition in his writings. Above all, — he combats the obscurant- 
ists of his own school who would narrow the new learning to 
a formalism scarcely less repellent, certainly no more fruitful, 
than the old which it replaced. 

Few of the educational leaders of the sixteenth or seven- 
teenth centuries, and probably none of the important schools, 
failed to reflect in some degree the educational influence of 
this great master. 

English Humanistic Educators. — ■ As England produced no 
great Renaissance leaders who exerted any wide reputation, 
so her humanistic educators are those of rather local, or, at 
best, national influence. Among these were the scholars who 
introduced Greek and the new learning into the university, 
'such as Linacre, Grocyn and Cheke ; or those who organized 
it for the schools, such as Colet, Lilly and Ascham; or those, 
V like More, who exerted a general influence similar to that of 
Erasmus. Most of these will receive casual mention in sub- 
sequent paragraphs. Special attention can be given to but 
one. 
f; Roger AscJiam (15 15-1568) has achieved a reputation above 



Renaissance and Hiimanisiic Education ^3^'^ 

all other English humanistic educators. This is due to two 
things : first, that he was one of the first Enghshmen to write 
a treatise on education in the vernacular ; and, second, that he 
possessed a style that has given him a place in literature as 
well as in educational history. Ascham was a product of 
the early Renaissance revival at Cambridge, and succeeded 
Cheke, his master, to the chair of Greek. Later he became 
tutor to the Princess, later Queen Elizabeth, and then her 
Latin secretary. As with Sturm, Reuchlin, and many of the 
humanistic leaders, he was a man of public affairs as well as 
an educator, and speaks with the authority of such experience 
as well as that of a schoolmaster. This authority and his 
royal influence gave him his reputation during his lifetime, 
for his educational treatise, llie ScJioobnastei', was not pub- 
lished until after his death (1571). His conception of educa- 
tion, though definitely limited by the title of his book to 
schoolroom education, is that of the typical humanists. Its 
aim is defined in terms of culture and virtue. Moral pur-> 
pose and practical efficiency are supposed to be its outcome ; 
but these ends are to be gained wholly by the use of literature. 
His analysis of the subject-matter of education shows a wide 
knowledge of the classics, and his recommendations are sim- 
ilar to those of Erasmus and of Sturm, whom he closely fol- 
lowed. His treatise, however, is so largely devoted to a 
discussion of method that the general impression left from 
the insistence on the importance of grammar is that of the 
narrower humanists. All learning seems not only to be based 
on this, but to center in it. In his treatment of method, As- 
cham undoubtedly stated the best Renaissance practice, and 
since this has not been discussed in previous sections, it can 
most appropriately be given here, not only as representative 
of Ascham, but of the best humanistic practices. 

" First, let him teach the child cheerfully and plainly, the 
"ause and matter of the letter ; then let him construe it into 



384 History of Education 

English so oft as the child may easily carry away the under- 
standing of it; lastly, parse it over perfectly. This done 
thus, let the child, by and by, both construe and parse it over 
again ; so that it may appear the child doubteth in nothing 
that his master taught him before. After this, the child must 
take a paper book, and sitting in some place where no man 
shall prompt him, by himself, let him translate into English 
his former lesson. Then, showing it to his master, let the 
master take from him his Latin book, and pausing an hour 
at the least, then let the child translate his own English into 
Latin again in another paper book. When the child bring- 
eth it, turned into Latin, the master must compare it with 
Tullie's book, and lay them both together ; and where the 
child doth well, either in choosing or true placing of Tullie's 
words, let the master praise him and say, ' Here ye do well' 
For I assure you, there is no such whetstone to sharpen a 
good wit, and encourage a will to learning, as is praise. In 
these few lines I have wrapped up the most tedious part of 
grammar, and also the ground of almost all the rules that are 
so busily taught by the master, and so hardly learned by the 
scholar in all common schools ; which after this sort the mas- 
ter shall teach without all error, and the scholar shall learn 
without great pain, the master being led by so sure a guide, 
and the scholar being brought into so plain and easy a way. 
And therefore we do hot contemn rules, but we glaclly teach 
rules ; and teach them more plainly, sensibly, and orderly 
than they be commonly taught in common schools. For 
when the master shall compare Tullie's book with his scholar's 
translation, let the master at the first lead and teach his 
scholar to join the rules of his grammar-book with the exam- 
ples of his present lesson, until the scholar, by himself, be 
able to fetch out of his grammar every rule for every exam- 
ple ; so as the grammar-book be ever in the scholar's hand, 
and also used of him as a dictionary for every present use. 
This is a lively and perfect way of teaching of rules ; where 
the common way used in common schools, to read the gram- 
mar alone by itself is tedious for the master, hard for the 
scholar, cold and uncomfortable for them both." 

Though the details of method are expanded to constitute 
the greater part of the book, this double translation const! 



Renaissance and Humanistic Education 385 

tutes the essential practice. This method is a very great 
advance beyond the ordinary method of committing to mem- 
ory meaningless forms and rules in an unknown tongue. 
Ascham's treatise on method has been considered, not only 
the best of his times, but has often been pronounced the best 
of any time. Dr. Johnson said, " It contains perhaps the 
best advice that was ever given for the study of languages." 
The ScJioobnaster contains one other reform idea expanded 
and defended almost as thoroughly as the subject of method; 
that is, the matter of discipline. Ascham opposed the brutal 
discipline characteristic of all schools and masters of his time, 
and argued for a different attitude of teacher to pupil both 
for moral and pedagogical reasons. Nevertheless, corporal 
punishment continued to be used, not only as a corrective for 
evil, but as the chief incentive to study. The two great con- 
tributions of Ascham to the educational thought of the time 
were these of the uselessness and the evil of inflicting physical 
pain and the improved method as a substitute for the purely 
formal approach to grammar and literature, and yet in both 
matters the English schools continued in the old way for 
fully two centuries longer. 

TYPES OF HUMANISTIC SCHOOLS. — The educational 
dominance of the humanistic ideas was exerted first through 
the conquest of existing educational institutions, primarily 
the universities and the recently founded burgher schools; 
then through the multiplication of such schools more thor- 
oughly embodying the new spirit than was possible in those 
founded under the aegis of the old traditions ; finally, by the 
establishment of new types of schools wholly expressive of 
the new spirit. By the time this latter stage was reached 
the Renaissance movement had coalesced with the Reforma- 
tion movement, so that these new types of schools were con- 
nected with some aspect of the latter tendency. In the 
earlier part of the Renaissance these schools attempted to 



3 



86 History of Education 



embody the broader idea of the liberal education, but soon 
became representative of the narrow humanistic view only. 
This change is explained partially by the fact that the 
spirit of the movement itself was narrower ; partially, by the 
natural tendency toward formalism in the attempted realiza- 
tion of any general and somewhat indefinite ideal in educa- 
tion ; and partially by the prolonged, preliminary training in 
language forms necessary to the development of literary 
application or use of a foreign tongue in formal discourse. 

In time, certainly by the latter part of the sixteenth cen- 
tury, the formalism in the work of these institutions was no 
less characteristic and no less rigid, though different in con- 
tent, than the formalism of the later mediaeval education. 
These schools, and this narrow humanistic education, repre- 
sented the practice and the ideal of education for several 
centuries, even well into the nineteenth, before there was 
any general revolt against them. In the subsequent con- 
sideration of other types it must be borne in mind that these 
latter were protests only and that the normal condition was 
the one determined at the period now under consideration. 

The Universities. — These general statements especially are 
true of the universities, for the old traditions long' resisted 
the spirit of the new learning. Though the conquest of 
some was complete, and the new subjects in time found 
tolerance in all, the formalism of their work was not radically 
changed. The most important modifications were a broad- ,' 
ening of the authority which dominated the work and the 
change in content made by the addition of literary and i 
linguistic subjects, especially Greek and the substitution of 
classical for ecclesiastical Latin. It was in the Italian uni- ■ 
versifies, those of Pavia, Florence, Padua, Milan, and Rome, I 
that the new learning first found a permanent home. Grow- 1' 
ing out of the influence of Petrarch and Boccaccio, teachers r 
of rhetoric in the universities began to devote their time to l 
the study of the classical authors, the "imitation of thai 



;' Renaissance and Hiunanistic Edtication '^%"] 

ancijents" became a passion with many, and students were 
dra^jvvn from the dominant interest of law and dialectic. 
Thijs imitation led to the study of the classics and from that 
to am attempt at reproduction, especially through epistolary 
effoTts, that in the case of the leading humanists produced 
a real literature; for this imitation was not only an attempt 
to n'.iaster the style of the ancients, but also to assimilate the 
content of their writings and their dominant ideas and their 
coiAduct of life. Of these teachers probably Barzizza (1370- 
1431) was the most noted, and when the scholarship became 
critical Lorenzo Valla (1407-1457) the most learned. The 
introduction of the knowledge of Greek through the Byzan- 
tine Greeks and especially the work of Chrysoloras has been 
mentioned. Boccaccio was probably the first Italian who got 
hold of any conception of the classical Greek. During the 
fifteenth century the teaching of Greek either in the univer- 
^1 sities or in the schools under the patronage of local lords, or 
under wholly private auspices, became quite common through- 
out Italy; through students from the North this new learning 
was carried into all those countries. By the sixteenth century 
the classical study in these universities had degenerated into 
that narrow Ciceronianisni previously noted. 

As the new learning had spread through Italy chiefly 
through the wandering scholars and teachers, so it passed 
to the universities of the North during the latter half of the 
fifteenth century. The University of Paris, where the Hier- 
onymians had gained a stronghold and favored the new 
learning, was the storm center. Greek was taught here as 
early as 1458. The political connection between France and 
Italy was especially close after 1494; this aided the develop- 
ment in intellectual sympathy, already strong because of 
the basal Latin character. During the sixteenth century 
French scholars and printers were the leaders of the move- 
ment both within and without the universities. 

After 1460 the German universities of Heidelberg, Erfurt, 



388 History of Education \ 

and Leipzig were frequented by these wandering teachers 
of "poetry." The first permanent chair of the new le'arn- 
ing, "Poetry and Eloquence" it was called, was established 
at Erfurt in 1494. Wittenberg, founded in 1502, was hunian- 
istic from the beginning, and by 1520 the new learning was 
at least represented in all and thoroughly dominant in se\'eral 
of the German universities. 

The new learning was introduced into England through 
Oxford by a group of students who had acquired their 
inspiration from the Italian schools. The foremost of these 
Hellenists were William Grocyn and Thomas Linacre. 
Around these men Erasmus found a group of scholars 
gathered when he came to Oxford in 1498. At Cambridge, 
it was Erasmus himself who introduced the new learning 
from 1 5 10 to 1 5 13. Ascham and Colet were Cambridge 
products of the early sixteenth century. 

Schools of the Court and of the Nobility. — The conservatism, 
or the hostiUty of the universities and of the Church and 
monastic schools to the new learning, led to the establishment 
of many schools embodying the new spirit through the pat- 
ronage extended to scholars by the monarchs and the nobility 
of the times. This was especially true in many of the small 
Italian states, where the dignity of the court was much en- 
hanced by such attendants. A great rivalry grew up among 
these states for the attachment of noted scholars or for the 
possession of famous schools. The customary migratory 
life of these scholars in their search for learning or for new 
honors encouraged this competition and assisted in the 
dissemination of the new learning. At Florence, Verona, 
Padua, Venice, Pavia, and numerous Italian cities such court 
circles flourished, frequently with no organization into schools 
whatever. Some of these rivaled the universities and some 
were in connection with the local universities, which became 
in a way, appendages to the court. Still others, as the famous 
one at Mantua under Vittorino of Feltra, possessed indepen- 



Renaissance and Humanistic Education 389 

dent organizations as schools. Many such schools of these 
early masters embodied, though in a less notable degree, the 
same ideas as those of Vittorino. The function which these 
schools had in the education of the children of the court led 
to an emphasis on the physical and social elements in educa- 
tion as well as on the literary, and resulted in a fusion of the 
chivalric and humanistic ideas. Hence the outcome was an 
approximation to the schools of the Greeks such as was seldom 
found in the humanistic schools of North Europe. At the 
same time, it will be remembered, this inclusion of elements of 
education, often overlooked, was offset by the fact that it was 
the personal development of these leaders that was held in 
view rather than any broader social or moral reformatory 
ends. 

The Fiirstenschulen, or schools for princes, founded in 
Germany during the early sixteenth century, were similar to 
these court schools of Italy. Resembling these latter in 
their purpose, in their curriculum, in their complete control 
over the life of the boys and to a certain extent in their spirit, 
they differed from the dominant type of German Renaissance 
schools in a variety of respects. They were not controlled 
by municipalities as were the gymnasien, but were under the 
immediate control of the courts; they were boarding schools, 
and hence had a wider supervision and more thorough control 
over the students ; they aimed to train directly for leadership 
in Church and State ; their students were drawn chiefly from 
the families of the nobility ; in respect to the content of their 
curriculum they represented a broader if less definite type 
than the gymnasien and to an extent paralleled the work of 
the universities. While the discipline of these schools was 
quite monastic in character, the curriculum was less rigid and 
somewhat more responsive to the needs of the times than 
was that of the gymnasien. The most important of these 
schools, never very numerous, were those of Pforta, Meissen, 
and Grimma. 



390 History of Ed2tcation 

The Schools of the Brethren of the Common Life, mentioned 
previously as among the best schools previous to the Renais- 
sance movements, and mentioned through their leaders, 
Hegius, Agricola, Reuchlin as furnishing typical humanistic 
educators, were among the earliest of schools north of the 
Alps to embody the new learning. By the middle of the fif- 
teenth century these schools, numbering one hundred and fifty, 
were scattered throughout Flanders, France, and Germany, 
and were represented by their teaching members in many 
other schools. Opposition to scholasticism and interest in the 
vernacular and in Biblical instruction had well prepared the 
soil for the planting of the new learning. Soon the new spirit 
in grammatical studies and the devotion to literature, as well as 
the great interest in Greek and Hebrew and advanced studies 
in general, became characteristic of the schools of the order. 
The work and the constitution of this order furnished the 
chief source of suggestion for the organization of the Jesuit 
schools, which by the latter half of the sixteenth century 
supersede those of the " scholarly brethren," as the Hierony- 
mians were called. 

The Gymnasien were the typical humanistic schools of the 
Teutonic countries, and have remained until the present time 
as the best type of the secondary schools of those countries 
as well as the best type of the humanistic schools in general. 
They were formed from the existing higher burgher schools 
by the substitution of the classical for the mediaeval Latin, 
the study of hterature for the old formal rhetoric, of mathe- 
matics for dialectic, and the addition of Greek and in many 
cases Hebrew. The school at Schlettstadt in Alsace under the 
influence of the Brethren of the Common Life was one of the 
first to respond to the new spirit. From its origin, about the 
middle of the century, it had under its first rector, Dringen- 
berg, been hostile to the old education. From it came many 
of the earlier German humanists, as Wimpfeling, Beatus 
Rhenanus, and John Sapidus. As early as 1485 the new 



Renaissance and Humanistic Education 391 

influences were at work in the burgher school at Nuremberg, 
and in 1495 " poetry" was added to the curriculum. A few 
years later "poetry" and "oratory" were introduced into all 
the higher schools of the city. In 1521 Latin, Greek, and 
Hebrew were introduced into the old cathedral school, and 
five years later Melanchthon inaugurated a new secondary 
school-embodying his curriculum. By this time many other 
city schools had been remodeled, and the term gymnasium 
began to be used to indicate the schools of the new discipline. 
The gymnasium at Strassburg, organized in 1537 by John 
Sturm, a pupil of Wimpfeling, and conducted by him for 
nearly forty years, exerted the greatest influence of any of 
these schools. Though somewhat more advanced than most 
gymnasien, since Sturm in his later years aspired to develop 
a university, in its organization, method, and curriculum it may 
be taken as typical. The work of the gymnasium was divi- 
ded into ten grades, or years, closely articulated, with work 
accurately gauged for the age and the stage of advancement 
of the pupil ; with method carefully determined, and faith- 
fully adhered to for years ; and with subject-matter for the 
most part chosen from the Latin classics, with some from the 
Greek and from the New Testament Epistles in Greek. As 
representative of more than three centuries it may be well to 
notice the curriculum of one of these schools more in detail. 
No better one exists, nor one worked out more carefully than 
this of Sturm. A summary of the curriculum is as follows: — 

Tenth Class : The alphabet, reading, writing, Latin declen- 
sions and conjugations ; catechism in Latin or German. Ninth 
Class : Declensions and conjugations ; Latin vocabulary of 
terms of everyday life ; irregular Latin forms. Eighth 
Class : Continuation of above ; composition of Latin phrases ; 
some letters of Cicero ; exercises in style. Seventh Class : 
Syntax in connection with Cicero's Letters ; composition ; 
translation of catechism, etc., into Latin. Sixth Class : Trans- 
lation of Cicero, Latin poets, catechism, and Letters of Jerome 
with grammatical exercises ; Greek begun. Fifth Class ; 



392 Histo7y of Educatio7t 

Latin versification, mythology ; Cicero ; Virgil's Eclogues ; 
Greek ; exercise in style ; double translations ; Paul's Epistles. 
Fourth Class : Same as fifth class, with wide reading of Latin 
authors. Third Class : Rhetoric ; Orations of Cicero and of 
Demosthenes ; double translations of orations ; composition 
of letters ; presentation of comedies of Plautus and Terence 
in this and higher classes. Second Class : Greek orators and 
poets ; dialectic and rhetoric in connection with Cicero and 
Demosthenes ; presentation of selected dramas of Aristoph- 
anes, Euripides, and Sophocles, in addition to Plautus and 
Terence. First Class : Dialectic and rhetoric ; Virgil, Horace, 
Homer, Thucydides, Sallust, Epistles of St. Paid. 

The entire work of the school was determined by its great 
purpose, — the development of the ability to speak and write 
the Latin of Cicero. Though Martial, Horace, Virgil, Ter- 
ence, and Plautus were used, Cicero's writings formed the 
bulk of the curriculum. The orators and the comedians were 
especially studied for the command which they gave of the * 
spoken language. There was much of declamation, oratory, 
presentation of plays, disputations, letter writing in the 
school for the same reason. Sturm defined the aim of edu- 
cation to be piety, knowledge, and eloquence. By the first he 
meant knowledge of catechism, creed, etc., with reverence for 
religion and with participation in Church services ; by knowl- 
edge he meant the Latin language and ' literature ; and by 
eloquence the ability to use that language in practical life. 
As a result, Sturm trained many of the leaders of his time ; 
his school often had more than a thousand pupils from many 
lands, and many from the nobility. His influence was exerted 
on the schools of the sixteenth century through the many 
expert teachers whom he trained, through the influence of his 
model course of study so often imitated, through his published 
texts more carefully graded than any hitherto, through his 
correspondence as with such men as Ascham and Melanch- 
thon, and through his personal advice and influence in the 
establishment of schools. Though representative of the 



Renaissance and Htima^iistic Education 393 

times, the school was of the narrowest humanistic type. No 
attention was given to the vernacular, and only casual men- 
tion is made of geography and mathematics. In later years 
Hebrew was introduced. This represents the gymnasium of 
the sixteenth century ; and with some gradual curtailment 
of the classical element in favor, first, of mathematics, then 
of modern language and history and, finally, to some slight 
extent, of the natural sciences, it represents the gymnasium 
from that time to the present. 

With the progress of the Reformation and the organization 
of state systems of schools, the gymnasien passed under the 
control of the central governments and became, as they have 
remained, the unifying core of these systems. 

The English Public Schools represent the formulation of the 
same type of schools. Here such schools are on foundations, 
independent of both State and Church, furnished by private 
benevolence or by royal endowment. It is to this character- 
istic that the term public refers, for tuition charges are uni- 
versal, as with the gymnasien, and are here quite high. 
Such schools had been founded before the Renaissance, begin- 
ning with Winchester (1379) and Eton (1440). But it was 
not until after the founding of St. Paul's in London (15 12) 
that they became either numerous or representative of the 
Renaissance. St. Paul's, founded by John Colet, to whom 
reference has been made as one of the early humanistic 
leaders of England, became the model in curriculum, in 
method, and in purpose. The first master, WilHam Lilly, 
also a humanistic leader, perpetuated his influence and that 
of the school in a Latin grammar that was the standard text 
for all English schools for generations. The curriculum was 
outlined in the rules formulated by Colet as follows : — 

"As towchyng in this scole what shalby taught of the 
maisters and lernyd of the scolers, it passith my wit to devyse 
and determyn in particuler but in generall to speke and sum 
what to saye my mynde, I wolde they were taught all way in 



394 History of Education 

good litterature both laten and greke, and goode auctours 
suych as haue the veray Romayne ehquence joyned withe 
wisdome specially Cristyn auctours that wrote theyre wysdome 
with clene and chast laten other in verse or in prose, for my 
entent is by thys scoie specially to incresse knowledge and 
worshipping of god and oure lorde Crist Jesu and good Cristen 
lyff and maners in the Children And for that entent I will the 
Chyldren lerne ffirst aboue all the Cathechyzon in Englysh 
and after the accidence that I made or sum other yf eny be 
better to the purpose to induce chyldren more spedely to 
laten spech And thanne Institutum Christiani homines which 
that lernyd Erasmus made at my request and the boke called 
Copia of the same Erasmus And thenne other auctours Chris- 
tian p.s lactancius prudentius and proba and sedulius and 
Juuencus and Baptista Mantuanus and suche other as shalby 
tought convenyent and moste to purpose vnto the true laten 
spech all barbary all corrupcion all laten adulterate which 
ignorant blynde foils brought into this worlde and with the 
same hath distayned and poysenyd the olde laten spech and 
the varay Romayne tong which in the tyme of Tully and 
Salust and Virgill and Terence was vsid, whiche also seint 
Jerome and seint ambrose and seint Austin and many hooly 
doctors lernyd in theyr tymes. I say that ffylthynesse and 
all such abusyon which the later blynde worlde brought in 
which more ratheyr maybe callid blotterature thenne litterature 
I vtterly abbany sh and Exclude oute of this scole and charge the 
Maisters that they teche all way that is the best and instruct 
the chyldren in greke and Redyng laten in Redyng vnto 
them suych auctours that hathe with wisdome joyned the pure 
chaste eloquence." 

This rather conservative attitude toward the new learning 
becomes a more confident one with a half century's experi- 
ence and then approximates that of the continental schools. 
The organization of the school was into eight grades, though 
later the typical one for these public schools was that of six 
grades or "forms." 

At the time when Colet founded St. Paul's there existed in 
England from two to three hundred secondary schools in 
connection with monasteries, with cathedral, or collegiate 




^ im*^ " IT* ■ " ' J ' 



h i'* '-■ ■ -^-^ 




First English Public School; Winchester, 1387. Relationship 
WITH Monastic Schools indicated. 



Renaissance and Humanistic Education 395 

churches, with charity foundations in parish churches, with 
guilds, or upon independent foundations. There were few of 
these latter, and all were inferior to Winchester and Eton. 
The close connection between these and the Church or the 
monastic schools is indicated by the illustration given, which 
is the oldest representation of Winchester School. The chief 
difference between these and monastic or hospital founda- 
tions was in the beginning not one of kind but of degree. 
Here priests and paupers were provided for as well as 
scholars ; only there were seventy of the latter and three 
priests and sixteen charity foundationers. The main function 
of the institution was the training of future priests by the im- 
mediate preparation of students for New College, Oxford ; 
hence teachers were provided, and behold! a new institution, 
a school rather than a monastery or a hospital. With the 
progress of the Reformation movement came the dissolution 
of monasteries and chantries and consequently the suppres- 
sion of many of these schools under Henry VIII (i 509-1 547). 
Many, however, escaped suppression, and numerous others 
were refounded, thus giving to Edward VI in later days the 
undeserved title of "founder of schools." What concerns 
us now, however, is that these schools were all remodeled on 
Renaissance lines, and quite as complete a substitution of the 
schools of the new learning occurred as did in Germany. 
These public schools, nine of which, Winchester, Eton, St. 
Paul's, Westminster, Harrow, Charter-House, Rugby, Shrews- 
bury, and Merchant Taylors, are termed "great," continue 
the narrow humanistic training as formulated during this 
early Renaissance period, almost without any modification, 
until the report of the royal commissioners of investigation 
in 1864. 

The Grammar School of the American colonies was a 
transplanted English public school, now, however, for the 
most part supported and controlled by the colonies and the 
local town governments. Only rarel^^ did it receive a foun- 



396 



History of Education 



dation by bequest, and even more rarely was it founded by 
religious or private association. The curriculum, the method, 
and the purpose were almost identical with those of their 
English prototypes. Such schools were to be found in all 
the colonies, with the exception of Georgia and North Caro- 
lina, but were most numerous in the New England colonies 
where the reUgious motive was prominent and where colleges 
demanding the preparatory grammar training were influen- 
tial. In Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Maryland, systems 
of such schools existed, and in the first of these colonies such 

schools were estabhshed in 
considerable number. The 
first of these in America 
was the Boston Latin 
School, founded 1635, with 
a continuous existence to 
the present time. The 
illustration given is of the 
old schoolhouse in connec- 
tion with King's Chapel, 
as it was during the early 
part of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, at the close of the 
long mastership of Ezekiel Cheever. Cheever, the most fa- 
mous of colonial schoolmasters, came to the Boston school in 
1670, after a teaching experience of years in New Haven and 
in Charlestown, and served yet thirty-eight years in Boston. 
Owing to the fact that social and educational traditions were 
far less binding in the new country, the humanistic school 
gave place to a new type in America sooner than in any of 
the European countries. By the close of the eighteenth cen- 
tury the Latin schools had given place to the academy, to be 
mentioned later. 

The Jesuit Schools, which flourished in great numbers 
during the latter half of the sixteenth, the seventeenth, and 




The Boston Latin Grammar School, 
FOUNDED 1635. 



Renaissance and Humanistic Education 2>97 

the first half of the eighteenth centuries, constitute a most im- 
portant type of the humanistic schools. They represent for 
Roman Catholic countries this type of education. In their 
curriculum, influenced largely by the humanistic study in the 
universities, by the schools of the Brethren of the Common 
Life, and somewhat by Sturm's successful institution, they 
are thoroughly humanistic. Some further provision was 
made for the study of mathematics, of history, and of the cor • 
tent of literature than in Sturm's curriculum, but for the most 
part the work of these schools was of the narrow humanistic 
type of the most successful character. Since these schools 
constitute the most prominent example of the types o^' 
schools growing out of the religious controversies of the 
sixteenth century, fuller presentation of them must be given 
in the following chapter. 

REFERENCES 

What the Renaissance was. 

Adams, Civilization During the Middle Ages, Ch. XV. 

Acton's Cambridge History, Vol. I, 77ie Renaissance, Chs. XVI-XVII. 

(New York, 1902.) 
Andrews, Institutes of History, Ch. VIII. 
Burkhardt, The Renaissance in Italy, Pt. Ill, Chs. I, IV, V, VI, IX. Pt. IV, 

Chs. II-V. (London, 1878.) 
Draper, J. W., History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Vol II, 

Ch. VI. 
Ducoudray, G., History of Modern Civilization, Chs. IX-X. (New York, 

1891.) 
Emerton, MedicBval Europe, Ch. XIII. (Boston, 1894.) 
Guizot, F. P. G., History of Civilization, Vol. I, Chs. XI-XII. (London, 

I 846-1 853.) 
Owen, Skeptics of the Renaissance, Pt. I. (London, 1893.) 
Pater, The Renaissance, pp. 31-52. (New York, 1893.) 
Putnam, Books and their Makers, Vol. I, pp. 317-347. 
Robinson and Rolfe, Petrarch, Chs. I-II. (New York, 1898.) 
SchafF, P., The Renaissance and the Reformation, in the Evatigelical 

Alliatice for the United States, Document XXX, pp. 17-25. 
Stills, Studies in Medtceval History, Ch. XIII. (Philadelphia, i838.) 



398 Histojy of Education 

Symonds, A Short Histoi-y of the Re7iaissance in Italy. Ch. VII. (London, 

18930 
Svmonds. TJie Renaissajice in Italy ; The Revival of Leartmig. Chs. I- 
III, Ch. IX, pp. 239-298. (New York, 1888.) 

The Educatio7ial Meaning of the Re7iaissance. 

Barnard, Gerjnan Teachers and Educators, pp. 41-97. (Hartford, 1878.) 
Barnard, The Reiiaissajice in Italy, in Barnard's Jaurjial, Vol. VII, 

pp. 413-460. 
Compayre. Histo?y of Education, pp. 83-11 1. (Boston, 1886.) 
Drane, Christian Schools and Scholars. Ch. II. (London, i88r.) 
^TL^Ad&OTX, History of Education. ^'^. 175-180. (New York, 1900.) 
Erasmus, Upon tJie Right MetJiod of Study (in Woodward, Eras Jims'). 
Hazlett, Schools, Scliool Books, and ScJwohnasters, Chs. VII-IX. (London 

1888.) 
Janssen, History of t/ie Gennan People at the Close of the Middle Ages. 

Vol. I, Chs. I-II. (St. Louis, 1896-1903.J 
Jebb, Humanism in Education (Romanes Lectures). (London, 1899.) 
Kemp, History of Education, pp. 149-183. (Philadelphia, 1902.) 
Monroe, Thomas Platter and the Educational Renaissajice of the Sixteenth 

Century, Introduction. (New York, 1904.) 
Painter, History of Education, pp. 1 19-133. (New York. 1887.) 
Quick, Educatiojial Reforniers, Chs. I-III. (New York, 1899. j 
Russell, German HigJier Schools, Ch. II. (New York, 1899.) 
Woodward, Vittorino da Feltre. pp. 1-93, 134-161. (Cambridge, 1897.) 
Woodward, Desiderius Erasmus, Concerning the Aim and Method oj 

Ed.uiatio7t, Ch. II. (Cambridge, 1904.) 

Renaissance Educators. 

Barnard, German Teachers oMd. Educators, pp. 41-84. On the Hierony- 
mians, Reuchlin, Agricola, Erasmus. Platter, Melanchthon, etc. 

Drummond, Erasvms, Chs. VII and X, Sind passim. (London, 1873.) 

Laurie, Development of Educational Opitiion since the Renaissance, pp. 18- 
85. (Cambridge, 1903.) 

Owen, Skeptics of the Renaissance, Pt. 11. 

Platter, in Monroe, Whitcomb, and Barnard. 

Quick, Educational Reformers, pp. 22-32. 

Seebohm, Oxford Reformers, Chs. I, VI. (London, 1887.) 

Types of H7imo,nistic Schools. 

Barnard, Ger7na7i Teachers and Educators, pp. 85-92, 185-229. 
Hamlyn, U7iiversities of Europe at the Period of the Ref or /nation. (Ox- 
ford, 1876.) 



Renaissance ajid Humanistic Education 399 

Laurie, The Renaissance and the School, in School Review, Vol. Ill, 

pp. 140-148, 202-214. 
Laurie, Development of Educational Opinion since the Renaissance, pp. i- 

93- 

Russell, German Higher Schools, Ch. H. (New York, 1899.) 

Whitcomb, Source Book of the Renaissance, Vol. II, pp. 1-62. (Phila- 
delphia, 1899.) 

Woodward, Vittorino da Feltre, pp. 1-93. 

Woodward, Vittorino da Feltre and Erasmus, as above. 

Robinson and Rolfe, Monroe, Drane, Russell, Painter, Compayre, Kemp, 
etc., as above. 



TOPICS FOR FURTHER INVESTIGATION 

1. What similarity exists between the educational situation and educa- 
tional problem of the Renaissance and of the Sophist period of Greek 
education? 

2. Describe the ideal of culture and of personal development as found 
in the writings of Petrarch, Boccaccio, etc. 

3. Make a list of the subjects discussed as of interest in the writings of 
Petrarch or an}- Renaissance writer, and compare with a similar list from 
writings or chronicles or tales of the medifeval period. 

4. What contrasts can you discover between the worldliness of the 
Renaissance as shown in the literature of the period with the other worldli- 
ness of the medieval period ? 

5. To what extent were the earlier scientiiic discoverers — e.g. Lauren- 
tius Valla, Copernicus, Columbus — guided by knowledge gained direct 
from writings of the Greeks? 

6. What similarity exists in concgption of aim, organization, method, 
etc., of education of early Renaissance writers and those of Greek and Roman 
writers? (See translations in Woodward.) 

7. What is a liberal education? 

8. Can there be an absolute standard for a liberal education? 

9. Can there be an absolute curriculum for a liberal education? 

10. What is the meaning and content of humanism? 

11. Make a study of Erasmus's dialogue on Ciceronianism. 

12. Give an analysis of Erasmus's treatise on methods of teaching. 

13. Give an analysis of Wimpfeling's treatise on Youth {Adolescentia) or 
of his Guide to the German Youth. 

14. Give an account of the educational activities and influences of the 
Brethren of the Common Life. 



400 History of Education 

15. What are the merits and demerits of The Colloquies of Erasmus as 
a text-book when compared with material previously used? 

16. What evidences do you find of the inclusion of new elements in edu- 
cation in the Renaissance period? 

17. Trace the place held by the physical element in education from the 
ancient through the mediaeval and modern periods. The aesthetic element. 

18. Describe in detail the work of Reuchhn or of any of the humanistic 
educators mentioned but briefly. 

19. What similarity exists between the methods described in detail in 
Ascham's Schoolmaster and the best methods in use in the present in teach- 
ing languages ? 

20. Make a comparison between Lilly's Grammar and those now in use. 

21. Give a description of the content and method of work of the English 
public school. 

22. What material can you find relating to the method and subject- 
matter of work of the colonial grammar school? 



CHAPTER VII 

THE REFORMATION, COUNTER-REFORMATION, AND 
THE RELIGIOUS CONCEPTION OF EDUCATION 

WHAT THE REFORMATION WAS. — The most funda- 
mental features of this period have already been mentioned in 
stating the changed character of the Renaissance in the North, 
For the Renaissance in Germany is not to be distinguished 
from the Reformation, save in its spirit and in its outcome. 
The interest of the Italian Renaissance was largely in classical 
and pagan literature; the Teutonic Renaissance in patristic 
and Christian literature. As has been previously stated, the 
one was concerned in personal culture, the other in social 
reform in morals and in religion. One was individualistic 
and self-centered, the other was social and reformatory. The 
explanation of the difference is found partially in the fact 
that the civilization of the Latin countries was based directly 
upon the classical institutions, the traditions and influences 
of which were ever present, while the civilization of the 
Teutons had been a direct outgrowth of their Christianiza- 
tion ; partially, in the fact that the Teutonic mind possessed 
a moral and religious bent, while the Latin mind was pre- 
dominantly secular in its interests. The interests of the 
fifteenth century were literary and aesthetic, and involved 
the recovery and appreciation of the classical literatures. 
Those of the sixteenth century were ethical and theological, 
and involved criticism and reconstruction rather than appre- 
ciation. 

This criticism and this reconstruction were directed toward 
two aspects of religion, one abstract and theological, the other 

2 D 401 



402 Histojy of Ediuation 

practical and moral. In both the ethical and the theological 
aspects of the movement a division of the Church was in- 
volved ; in the former necessarily, in the latter only tempera- 
mentally. The movement began with the former, that is, with 
the effort to reform the many abuses within the Church. The 
necessity for such a reform was admitted by the Church long 
before the actual break occurred, and was striven for by 
many sections of the Catholic Church both before and after 
the open break had taken place. This tendency toward 
moral reform within the Church culminated in the Council of 
Trent (i 545-1 562), and in itself could probably have caused 
no permanent division. But by that time the abstract and 
theological differences, due to fundamental disagreement, 
had become so prominent that harmonization was no longer 
possible. 

This fundamental and necessary divergence in the concep- 
tion of religion is due to the nature of the human mind, and 
had appeared in the discussions of the later Middle Ages 
between nominalism and realism. But so long as men's 
minds remained essentially uncritical and without the basis 
for forming positive judgments, so long the inherent incom- 
patibility of the views did not cause open rupture. With the 
Renaissance this basis was furnished in the knowledge of 
ancient and patristic literature and through the critical spirit 
thus developed. Hence it was inevitable that these two 
views of religion should come in conflict. The one view looks 
upon religion as a completed truth, revealed in its entirety by 
divine providence and given into the hands of an institution, 
whose origin, constitution, and authority are divine in the same 
sense aind for the same reason that obtain in the case of the 
original revelation. To the other view, religion is a truth divine 
in its origin, but completed only with the growth and through 
the development of the spirit of man. It is not a completed 
truth, but one whose principles are perfected by progressive 
application through the lives of men. Its particular meaning, 



The Reformation 403 

in time and place, is given by tlie application of man's reason 
to the original revelation. Both accepting the original reve- 
lation as the basis, the one finds the truth completed in the 
authority of the Church, the other in the reason of the indi- 
vidual. Hence the Reformation is but the continued expan- 
sion of the function of reason originating in the Renaissance, 
and now applied to matters of religion. This statement ex- 
plains the essential spirit of the movement, notwithstanding 
the fact that the reformers, including Luther, denounced 
reason and asserted their unquestioned submission to author 
ity. The same tendency to observation, comparison, criticism, 
that is the appeal to original sources and to experience which 
characterizes the humanistic Renaissance, is the essential 
characteristic of the Protestant Reformation. And from this 
grew the most important educational consequences. 

The counter-Reformation, arising out of the period of the 
Council of Trent and using as its chief means on the negative 
or repressive side the Inquisition, and on the positive or con- 
structive side education, indicated the reaction against this 
movement toward separation. This education was controlled 
for the most part by the newly organized teaching congrega- 
tions, chief among which was the Society of Jesus. 

INFLUENCE OF THE PERIOD ON THE CONCEPTION 
AND SPIRIT OF EDUCATION. —The logical outcome of 
the views of the reformers would have led to a continuous 
development of the Renaissance emphasis upon the use of 
reason as the guide to the interpretation of secular life and 
of nature, to the restriction of the authority of the Scriptures 
to religious matters, and to the use of reason by the individual 
even in the interpretation of the Scriptures. But the tenden- 
cies in all of these lines were checked before the expiration 
of a single generation. Luther, in the early days at Witten- 
berg, wrote : " What there is contrary to reason is certainly 
much more contrary to God. For how should not that be 



404 History of Education 

against divine truth which is against reason and human 
truth ? " And even later he said, " It is admitted that reason 
is the chief of all things, and among all that belongs to this 
life, the best, yea, a something divine." But before the close 
of his life he stated as his view that, "The more subtle and 
acute is reason, the more poisonous a beast, with many dragon's 
heads, is it against God, and all His works." This latter 
position is reiterated over and over with characteristic vehe- 
mence. And this change is more than individual ; it is 
general. 

The Renaissance-Reformation movement gradually divides 
into three main currents. There i^,_^st, the scientific and 
philosophical tendency, which does not become prominent 
until the seventeenth century, and which we shall notice 
under the later realistic movement; next, the humanistic ten- 
dency, which, hampered between the scholasticism of both 
"Branches of the Church and the formalism of Ciceronianism, 
finds a somewhat precarious home within the pale of the 
Roman Catholic Church, chiefly in France ; and finally, 
the theological tendency of the intervening period, which 
possesses all north Europe and dominates thought-life as well 
as education. 

The Reformation leaders recognized for themselves that the 
doctrine of the Reformation contained inherently the right of 
liberty of conscience and the duty of interpreting the Scrip- 
tures according to one's own reason, but they found it quite 
as difficult as it had been before to recognize it for others. 
Hence, instead of a development of the critical and rational 
faculties, through application to literature, religion, and secu- 
lar affairs, to institutional life and to the realities of nature, 
all this was left for succeeding centuries. Even then this prog- 
ress was through bitter conflict with the reformed churches as 
well as with the Roman Catholic. This liberahsm of thought 
and emphasis on reason finds little realization in the educa- 
tion of the time, either as formulated into doctrine, as organ- 



The Refortnation 405 

ized into schools, or as expressing the somewhat indefinable 
spirit of education. 

Formalism in its Results. — Instead of this we find educa- 
tion dominated by a formalism growing out of the domi- 
nant theological groups, the Lutheran, the Calvinistic, the 
Zwinglian, and the Socinian, with their almost innumerable 
subdivisions into which the Protestant movement divided. 
Lutheranism especially, following the political divisions of 
the German people, became a congeries of discordant sects, 
whose chief interests were now in the petty conflicts among 
themselves. The result was a multitude of creeds, expanded 
to cover the minutest details, carrying now to their respective 
adherents all the authority of the Scriptures, and enforced so 
far as the German states were concerned by the powers of 
government. Not only was intellectual life bound within 
these narrow limits, but the education of the schools, higher 
and lower, took its purpose and received its spirit from this 
same formal and narrow interest. The counter-Reformation 
intensified the same attitude upon the part of those of the 
Catholic communion. For the later half of the sixteenth 
and for all of the seventeenth century, so far as the typical 
schools were concerned, there existed a new scholasticism, 
either Protestant or Roman Catholic, in which there was a 
return to Aristotelianism as a basis for the endless definitions 
and distinctions made necessary by these involved systems. 
Though the content was somewhat different, the spirit and 
the form of this scholasticism of the sixteenth century was 
the same as that of the thirteenth. 

Hence it was that the Reformation failed to produce dur- 
ing the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries those intellectual 
and educational results which were logically involved in the 
basal positions of the reformers so far as these related to 
free learning, the spread of culture, and the development of 
science. The bitter partisan and destructive religious wars 
of the entire period were partially responsible for this domi- 



4o6 History of Education 

nance of the state over religion, and for the formal and 
scholastic cTiaracter of~education. These conditions also ex- 
plain the low ebb of educational affairs during the seventeenth 
century, and the fact that the educational efforts of the early- 
reformers and the reformed states did not become realized 
until late in the seventeenth or in the eighteenth century. 

This formal theological education appeared not only in 
the content of the work of universities and higher schools 
and in the spirit of the intellectual life in general, it appeared 
also in the concrete work of the schools. Here it was not 
Athe actual training in formal theology and a devotion to theo- 
/ logical disputation, though there was enough of that, so much 
as it was the training in the old dialectic power, the power of 
discrimination in form, of making fine distinctions in the 
meaning of words and the accurate use of abstract terms. 
There was little or no interest in content. Thus there re- 
sulted the same emphasis on the memory and abstract logical 
activities of the mind, without any reference to the inherent 
validity of the material upon which it worked.^ 

Humanistic Content. — On the content side the Reformation 
educators accepted the humanistic curriculum, though they 
used it for a different purpose than did the earlier humanistic 
educators. This acceptance resulted from the vital connec- 
tion between the two movements, previously noted, and from 
the fact that the mastery of the classical languages was 
essential for the purpose of providing for a direct study of the 
Scriptures and of the Fathers in the originals. Consequently, 
this study became the immediate purpose of the Protestant 
education and found a prominent place in the Protestant 
schools. Through the use of the catechisms, creeds and 
church services, which characterized all schools of the times, 
whether in Protestant or Roman Catholic countries, through 
the use of the Scriptures as texts, and through the direction 
of the entire work of the school to the exposition of Christian 

1 For concrete details of this formalism, see pp. 384, 391, 393-4, 525-7. 



The Reforfnatio7i 



407 



literature and Christian doctrine and to the development of 
exegetical and polemical ability, the curriculum received a 
profound religious bias. 

Institutional Effects. — One other great educational influ- 
ence of the Reformation, calling for more extended notice 
later, deserves mention here; namely, the establishment of 
systems of schools based upon the idea of universal educa- 




Catechetical Instruction in the Protestant Public Schools. 



tion. Such systems of state public schools are wholly due 
in their origin to the Reformation. Their development and 
completion awaited the growth of the political idea that the 
welfare of the state depends upon the education of the 
individual citizen. The basis for. all these modern systems 
of schools is found in the Reformation doctrines that the 
eternal welfare of every individual depends upon the appli- 
cation of his own reason to the revelation contained in the 
Scriptures. Consequently, both the ability to read the Scrip- 



4o8 History of Education 

tures in some form, the desirability of reading them in the 
original, and the necessity for the training of the rational 
powers, presented new tasks for the school, and demanded 
the universal and even compulsory education of children of 
all classes and of both sexes. It is not maintained that the 
Reformation gave the Bible to the people in the vernacular, 
for there were at least twenty German editions before that 
of Luther; nor that it gave the elementary school to the 
people, for it is probable that the actual opportunity for 
education open to children of all classes was greater for the 
century before the Reformation than it was for the century 
afterward. But the modern practice is undoubtedly an out- 
growth of the principles involved in the Reformation. 

General Effects. — ■ The religious conception of education 
which prevailed during the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
turies, and, in fact, was dominant well into the nineteenth, 
was marked by certain general characteristics in both Protes- 
tant and Roman Catholic countries. 

The chief function of education was to develop the reli- 
gious beliefs and practices, and the ecclesiastical affiliations 
and interests of the child, for upon these depended his 
eternal welfare. Religious material, and the linguistic train- 
ing necessary for the use of such material, constituted the 
bulk of the subject-matter. Such methods were used as would 
cultivate a respect for authority and tradition, and would 
produce a dialectic ability in exposition and argumentation. 
On the institutional side of education, the schools were either 
controlled completely by the Church or, in many Protestant 
countries, by both State and Church ; for even where the 
State exercised formal- control, both the teaching and the 
direct supervision were chiefly in the hands of ecclesiastics. 

SOME REFORMATION EDUCATORS. — As we have seen 
that it is impossible to distinguish between the Renaissance 
movement and the Reformation movement in all of north 



The Reformation 409 

Europe, so it is quite difficult also to differentiate the human- 
istic educators from the religious educators of the sixteenth 
century. From the fact that the new learning was given a 
reformatory bent, the north European humanists were collec- 
tively responsible for the Reformation movement. While 
many of them, such as Erasmus, Wimpfeling, More and Rabe- 
lais, among the more prominent, refused to break with the 
Church, and rejected the violent methods of the reformers, 
they could not dissociate themselves from this responsibil- 
ity. This truth was put in a homely way by Luther, when 
he said that he but hatched the Q.g^ laid by Erasmus. To 
which Erasmus replied that the fgg was but a hen's ^%g, 
while Luther had hatched a game cock. So, on the one hand, 
many of those prominent as humanistic educators, such as 
Sturm, are quite as good representatives of religious as of 
humanistic education ; and, on the other hand, many of those 
usually considered as Reformation educators, such^as Melanch- 
thon, are quite as thoroughly humanistic as any mentioned 
in the previous chapter. This lack of definiteness in the 
delimitation exists in other groups as well. For example, 
Comenius, later taken as the chief representative of the sense 
reahsts, is quite as truly a leader in the educational move- 
ment of the Reformation as either Luther or Melanchthon. 
In_jother _words, the religious_aspect_j)f^ the work of these 
educatorsjs revealed in the pui:po,se and organization of edu- 
cation, while the humanistic or realistic aspect appears in the 
content or subject-matter. Though but a few of them are 
here mentioned in detail, the Reformation and the counter- 
Reformation movements produced many great educators and 
leaders of educational thought. In fact, it was a conse- 
quence of the character of the later Renaissance movement 
that all the religious leaders seized upon education as the 
chief instrument for bringing about the reforms which they 
desired. On the Protestant side, the great leaders are natu- 
rally Luther and Melanchthon. 



4IO History of Education 

John Calvin (i 509-1 564) was occupied during the greater 
part of his life in religious and theological controversies. 
Only during his later years did he give especial attention to 
education. He then organized a college at Geneva, which was 
little,J2iore than a typical humanistic Latin school. Later, 
these schools became quite numerous throughout France 
among the Protestant communities. With the expulsion of the 
Huguenots, many schools of a similar type, under the patron- 
age or influence of the French refugees, were established in 
Germany, as a type scarcely to be distinguished from the 
Fnrste7iscJutlen previously mentioned (p. 389). Zwingli (1484— 
1532), the great Swiss reformer, fostered the humanistic learn- 
ing, encouraged the formation of elementary schools, and 
wrote a treatise on " The manner of instrncting and bringing 
np boys in a CJiristian zvay" (1524). John Knox (i 505-1 572), 
the leader of the Scotch Reformation, was the chief agent in 
the establishment of the parish school system of Scotland. 

Martin Luther (1483-1546), the great protagonist of the 
Reformation, assumed the leadership of the educational move- 
ment that had already begun in Germany, even before the 
germs of the Renaissance ideas took root. This movement 
worked toward the deliverance of education, through the 
power of the State, from the trammels which by a gradual 
process through centuries had been forged for it by the 
Church ; toward a wider dissemination of the opportunities 
for education ; and toward a truer conception of the function of^ 
education in life, both religious and secular. All of these ten- 
dencies harmonized with Luther's beliefs, and the success of 
the Reformation necessitated at least a partial realization of 
them ; yet all three had existed before the time of Luther. 
Beginning with the last mentioned, — that toward a broader 
view of the nature and function of education, — let us con- 
sider Luther's influence in connection with each of these 
tendencies 

Luther's condemnation of the education given by monastic 



The Reformation 411 

and ecclesiastical schools was very harsh. While the burghei 
schools were now frequent in thei larger cities, most of these, 
especially those of an elementary character, were wholly 
dominated by the teachers and the spirit of the Church 
schools. The smaller towns and villages were quite unpro- 
vided with any other kind. Against their narrow outlook, 
ascetic spirit, and harsh discipline, he writes thus : — • 

" Solomon was a right royal schoolmaster. He does not for- 
bid children from mingling with the world, or from enjoying 
themselves, as the monks do their scholars ; for they will thus 
become clods and blockheads, as Anselm likewise perceived. 
Said this one : 'a young man, thus hedged about, and cut off 
from society, is like a young tree, whose nature it is to grow 
and bear fruit, planted in a small and narrow pot.' For the 
monks have imprisoned the youth whom they have had in 
charge, as men put birds in dark cages, so that they could 
neither see nor converse with any one. But it is dangerous 
for youth to be thus alone, thus debarred from social inter- 
course. Wherefore, we ought to permit young people to see, 
and hear, and know what is taking place around them in the 
world, yet so that you hold them under discipline, and teach 
them self-respect. Your monkish. strictness is never produc- 
- tive of any good fruit. It is an excellent thing for a young 
man to be frequently in the society of others ; yet he must 
be honorably trained to adhere to the principles of integrity, 
and to virtue, and to shun the contamination of vice. This 
monkish tyranny is, moreover, an absolute injury to the 
young ; for they stand in quite as much need of pleasure 
and recreation as of eating and drinking ; their health, toOj 
will be firmer and the more vigorous by this means." 

This passage gives, not only his condemnation of the old, 
but his conception of the new. The purpose and scope of 
education are no longer to be dominated solely by religion 
and the Church. 

"Were there neither soul, heaven, nor hell, it would be still 
necessary to have schools for the sake of affairs here below, 
as the history of the Greeks and the Romans plainly teaches 



J^VXv-C. 



412 History of Education 

The world has need of educated men and women, to the end 
that the men may govern the country properly, and that the 
women may properly bring up their children, care for their 
domestics, and direct the affairs of their households." 

Almost every variation of this conception of education as a 
training essential to the ordinary duties of life in the home, 
the occupation, the State and the Church receives emphasis in 
his writings or his sermons to the German people. Conse- 
quently, the family is looked upon as an educational institu- 
tion not even secondary to the school. Education becomes 
something broader than the school. But the school itself is 
broader than that which then existed, and, it may be remarked, 
much broader than those established by his followers of the 
sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries. It is true that 
Vo3.A^ Latin and Greek constitute the bulk of the curriculum. To 
HvuaJc \^q^q languages he adds Hebrew, and also attempts to bring 
. . ""this linguistic education within the reach of all. But his cur- 
, , riculum is much more than linguistic. He adds the logic and 
I - . mathematics demanded by the times, but lays a new em- 
phasis on history, on science, as then conceived, and upon 
music. This latter provision indicates one of Luther's most 
important influences upon the German people, for music thus 
becomes a component part of the education of all. Gymnas- 
tics and physical education are given a place new to German 
thought. 

The fundamental relation of the Reformation to universal 
education has been noticed previously, Luther quickly seized 
this important point and insisted upon it throughout his 
teachings. Schooling was to be brought to all the people, 
noble and common, rich and poor ; it was to include both boys 
and girls — a remarkable advance ; finally, the State was to 
use compulsion if necessary. In this connection the supple- 
mentary function of the school in education again comes to 
the fore. Luther advocated a school day of two hours, so 
arranged that it would allow the older children and youth to 



The Reformation 413 

carry on the ordinary economic duties of life uninterruptedly. 
" I by no means approve of those schools where a child was 
accustomed to pass twenty or thirty years in studying Donatus 
or Alexander, without learning anything. Another world has 
dawned, in which things go differently. My opinion is that 
we must send the boys to school one or two hours a day, and 
have them learn a trade at home for the rest of the time. It 
is desirable that these two occupations march side by side." 
It was further his opinion that the authorities were " bound 
to force their subjects to send their children to school," just 
as every subject was compelled to render military service and 
for much the same reason ; namely, for the defense and the 
prosperity of the State. 

Consequently, education should be state-supported and 
state-controlled. 

" In view of all this, it becomes councilmen and magistrates 
to watch over youth with unremitting care and diligence. For 
since their city, in all its interests, life, honor, and possessions, 
is committed to their faithful keeping, they do not deal justly 
with their trust, before God and the world, unless they strive 
to their utmost, night and day, to promote the city's increase 
and prosperity. Now, a city's increase consists not alone in 
heaping up great treasure, in building solid walls or stately 
houses, or in multiplying artillery, and munitions of war; 
nay, where there is a great store of this, and yet fools with it, 
it is all the worse and all the greater loss for the city. But 
this is the best and the richest increase, prosperity and 
strength of the city, that it shall contain a great number of 
polished, learned, intelligent, honorable, and well-bred citi- 
zens ; who, when they have become all this, may then get 
wealth and put it to a good use." 

Therefore as a city is at a great expense each year for the 
construction of roads, the fortifying of ramparts, and the 
equipment of soldiers, why should it not support one or two 
schoolmasters .'' The outcome of Luther's influence in this 
respect was the building up of the system of schools of the 
Protestant states. 



414 History of Education 

Luther's view of the importance of education is indicated, 
even summarized, by his appreciation of the work of the 
teachers. 

"Where were your supply of preachers, jurists, and physi- 
cians, if the arts of grammar and rhetoric had no existence ? 
These are the fountain out of which they all flow. I tell you, 
in a word, that a dihgent, devoted school teacher, preceptor, 
or any person, no matter what is his title, who faithfully 
trains and teaches boys, can never receive an adequate 
reward, and no money is sufficient to pay the debt you owe 
him ; so, too, said the pagan, Aristotle. Yet we treat them 
with contempt, as if they were of no account whatever ; and, 
all the time, we profess to be Christians. For my part, if I 
were compelled to leave off preaching and to enter some 
other vocation, I know not an office that would please me 
better than that of schoolmaster, or teacher of boys. For I 
am convinced that, next to preaching, this is the most useful, 
and greatly the best labor in all the world, and, in fact, I am 
sometimes in doubt which of the positions is the more honor- 
able. For you cannot teach an old dog new tricks, and it is 
hard to reform old sinners, but this is what by preaching we 
undertake to do, and our labor is often spent in vain ; but it 
is easy to bend and to train young trees, though haply in the 
process some may be broken. My friend, nowhere on earth 
can you find a higher virtue than is displayed by the stranger, 
who takes your children and gives them a faithful training, 
— a labor which parents very seldom perform, even for their 
own offspring." 

Thus Luther contributed materially to the formulation of a 
new and broader conception of education and gave powerful 
impetus to practical changes already initiated. The concrete 
work of carrying these into effect was left to his followers, 
chief among whom was Melanchthon. 

Philip Melanchthon (1479-1560) has been given the title 
of Pi^eceptor of Geinnany, for he was to Germany in educa- 
tional reform what Luther was in religious reform. The 
educational suggestions which Luther urged upon the Ger- 
man people through his many appeals were formulated and 



The Reformation 415 

carried out by Melanchthon. The title was not given with- 
out good reason, for at his death there was scarcely a city 
in all Germany but had modified its schools according to 
Melanchthon's direct advice or after his general suggestions, 
and scarcely a school of any importance but numbered some 
pupil of his among its teachers. Wittenberg was the center 
from which radiated these influences, united as they were 
with those of Luther, for in the university there Melanchthon 
labored for the last forty-two years of his life. And it was 
in university circles that his educational reforms were first 
carried out. Through his influence the university was soon 
remodeled along humanistic and Protestant lines. Other 
universities of north Germany soon imitated these changes, 
and Wittenberg was the model of the many new universities 
of Germany, mentioned later (p. 417). To Wittenberg flocked 
students by the thousand, drawn by Melanchthon's great 
reputation ; and from Wittenberg, in turn, were sent out 
teachers carrying Melanchthon's idea into all Germany. If a 
prince needed a professor for his university or a city a rector 
for its schools, Melanchthon was consulted and most natu- 
rally one from his pupils chosen. The most distinguished 
teachers of this period, such as Neander and Trotzendorf, were 
his pupils, or like Sturm dependent upon him for counsel. 
Not only through his pupils did he exercise leadership, but 
through his correspondence and visitation as well. His cor- 
respondence with fifty-six German cities regarding their 
schools is still in existence.^ 

Melanchthon often inaugurated these new schools in per- 
son. But his contact with the individual pupil was mainly 
through his many text-books. When sixteen years of age, 
he wrote the Greek grammar which later became almost 
universally the text for the German schools. His Latin 
grammar, written later, achieved a similar reputation. His 
texts on dialectic, rhetoric, ethics, physics, history, etc., were 

1 Hartfelder, ATelanchthonia Padagogica. 



4i6 History of Education 

similarly useful in the lower schools, as his theology, the first 
of Protestant production, became the great text for Protestant 
universities and higher schools. 

Through his formulation of the Visitation Articles of 
Saxony in 1528, drawn up at the request of the elector, he 
became the founder of the modern public school system. 
The scope of these higher schools was quite restricted, as will 
be seen from his summary. Among other things, he says : — 

" There are now many abuses in the schools. In order 
that the young may be properly taught, we have prepared 
this form : first, the teachers should see to it that the chil- 
dren learn only Latin, not German, or Greek, or Hebrew, as 
some have hitherto done, burdening the children with a rnul- 
tipHcity of studies that were not only unfruitful, but even 
hurtful. It is also plain that such teachers do not consider 
the good of the children, but take up so many studies for the 
sake of reputation. Secondly, the teacher should not burden 
the children with too many books, and should, in every way, 
avoid multiplicity in his instruction. Thirdly, it is necessary 
that the children be divided into classes." 

But these schools slightly expanded became the gymnasien, 
the central schools of the whole German system. 

Melanchthon's pedagogical writings, consisting as they do 
chiefly of inaugural addresses or lectures to students on the 
value of the study of literature and philosophy, are of impor- 
tance only as indicating the content and spirit of the human- 
istic education. s 

TYPES OF RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS. — The Reformation in 
its beginning was simply the Renaissance movement especially 
directed as it was toward the study of Biblical and patristic 
literature and consequently rather toward Greek and Hebrew 
than merely to Ciceronian Latin. Hence it was in north 
Europe that the humanistic centers became Reformation 
centers and the lower humanistic schools the basis of systems 
of religious schools, both of Protestant and Roman Catholic 



The Reformation 417 

sympathies. The remark previously made concerning the 
Jesuit schools is applicable for the most part to all of these 
schools, that in subject-matter all such schools are strictly, 
even narrowly, humanistic ; while the purpose and spirit is 
almost wholly religious. The control of Protestant schools 
becomes vested nominally in the state, though the control 
remains practically religious ; while the Roman Catholic 
schools are organized by the teaching orders or congregations. 
The Universities. — The history of the universities of the 
German states during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 
is determined by the progress of the Protestant religion and is 
almost identical with the development of Protestant theology. 
Wittenberg, founded in 1502 as the first university of the 
new learning, became through the residence of Luther 
and Melanchthon the very center of Protestantism. The uni- 
versities gradually threw off their allegiance to the pope and 
transferred it to the temporal princes. Since now their sup- 
port was derived from the favor of these governments instead 
of from ecclesiastical sources, the control exerted by the 
princes became determinative, and many of them followed 
the occasional change in denominational adherence of the 
reigning families. To a considerable extent their support 
came from the dissolution of old monastic and ecclesiastical 
foundations. Marburg, founded in 1527, was the first of these 
Protestant universities, while Konigsberg, Jena, Helmstadt, 
Dorpat, and a number of others were added within a century. 
Within this same period seven Roman CathoHc universities 
were founded within the limits of the German states. Several 
during the same period grew out of gymnasien, as the one at 
Strasburg (1621) from Sturm's school, and the one at Altdorf 
(1578) from a famous institution at Nuremberg. Both of 
these were Protestant. While the work in many of these 
was of a high character, and the influence great, — Altdorf, 
for example, though very poor, is said to have contributed 
more to philosophical study than all of the universities of the 



4i8 History of Edtication 

British empire, — yet, in general, by the seventeenth century 
the activities of these institutions degenerated into the lifeless 
formalism previously mentioned. A German historian remarks 
that the dominant theological interest " called into existence 
a dialectic scholasticism, which was in no way inferior to that 
of the most flourishing period of the Middle Ages, either in the 
greatness or minuteness of the careful and acute development 
of its scientific form, or in the full and accurate exhibition of 
its rehgious contents." 

In England the connection between the Reformation and 
the universities followed a similar course. At Cambridge, 
where the Reformation centered, the movement began early in 
the period, under the leadership of Tyndale (c. 1484-1536) and 
Latimer (1485— 1555). The dissolution of the monasteries 
and friaries which formed so important a part of Oxford and 
Cambridge occasioned considerable diminution in power and 
effectiveness, which was gradually offset by the founding 
of new colleges from the spoils of these dissolutions and by 
the founding of regiiis professorships. In various other 
ways the monarch and the national Church came to their 
support, but in time the degeneracy in the character of the 
work and the life was even more marked than in the German 
universities. 

Protestant Control of the Humanistic Secondary Schools. — 
The movement toward the secularization of the Latin schools 
begun in the fifteenth century was completed by the Reforma- 
tion movement in the sixteenth. This secularization consisted, 
not in purpose and in character of study, but in change in 
control. And even as regards control, while exerted by the 
state or by the princes, the dominant motive in all of their 
actions concerning schools was the rehgious one. The rectors 
of these schools as well as many of their teachers were Protes- 
tant leaders or ministers, while the dominant influence in the 
boards of control and visitation was always exercised by the 
representative of the Church. The new schools founded were 



The Reformation 419 

shaped by Melanchthon's "School Plan," which was thoroughly 
humanistic in the sense that Erasmus and Luther would 
approve ; the purpose was chiefly civil and religious, rather 
than humanitarian in the broader sense. In content, little dif- 
ference, if any, from the old schools can be discovered. Domi- 
nantly Latin, a little Greek and less mathematics were added. 
Since now these schools were based on a system of vernacular 
schools, no attention was here paid to the vernacular, 

A more striking change was the organization of these 
schools into systems, through the cooperation of the state with 
the municipalities. The first distinctly Protestant gymnasium 
was that of Magdeburg, founded from the union of the old 
parochial schools in 1524. The following year Melanchthon 
drew up his plan of a gymnasium for the school of Eisleben, 
the birthplace of Luther. In 1528 the electorate of Saxony 
estabhshed the first general system of such schools. It pro- 
vided for the founding of Latin schools on Melanchthon's 
plan in all the towns and villages of Saxony, The Duchy of 
Wiirtemberg followed in 1559 and fhe other German states 
later. 

In England these secondary schools have not to this day 
been organized into a system. However, they soon passed 
under the control of the national Church. Even before the 
Reformation, Dean Colet, in founding St. Paul's, specified that 
the control should be in the hands of married laymen, the 
company of mercers. His reply to Erasmus as to the reason 
for this was that " there was no absolute certainty in human 
affairs ; but, for his part, he found less corruption in such a 
body of citizens than in any other order or degree of man- 
kind." The organization of these schools by Henry VIII and 
Edward VI was for the purpose of destroying the monastic 
and ecclesiastical control. Each was placed on a separate 
foundation, but most of them were so organized that the 
masters and fellows, the teaching and the controlling bodies, 
must be from the clergy of the Established Church, Thus 



420 History of Education 

they have remained until the reforms of the nineteenth 
century. 

The Teaching Congregations. — No more conclusive evi- 
dence can be cited of the effectiveness of the Protestant 
schools as a means of reforming social and ecclesiastical evils 
and of establishing the reformed churches, than the adoption 
of the same means by the Roman Catholic Church. In the 
sense that other purposes were more important and the edu- 
cational efforts incidental, and also in the sense that the 
education provided was a preparation for entrance into the 
orders, the educational efforts of the old monastic orders 
were wholly subordinate. More important still, the old 
orders were hostile in their nature and spirit to the new ideas 
and methods. The teaching orders adopted these as im- 
proved upon by the Reformation schools, and exalted educa- 
tional effort as their chief purpose. Until the early part of 
the nineteenth century these orders controlled secondary and 
higher education, and for the most part elementary education 
in the Roman Catholic countries of south Europe and of 
France, and were quite extensively represented in the Protes- 
tant countries of north Europe. The strongest and most 
important of these orders was that of the Jesuits. 

The Schools of the fcsiiit Order. — • The Society of Jesus, 
organized in 1540, became the chief instrument of the coun- 
ter-Reformation movement. Founded for the purpose of 
strengthening the authority of the papacy and extending the 
dominion of the Roman Catholic Church, it was directed both 
toward the conversion of the heathen and toward the com- 
bating of the Protestant heresies. It is in this latter phase 
of its activities that the order achieved its chief historical 
importance. The means adopted by the order for the accom- 
plishment of its purposes were preaching, confession, and 
teaching. While the practical influence of the order and the 
peculiar part played by it in the history of the two centuries 
following the organization, were due quite as much to the two 



The Reformation 421 

former instrumentalities, we are here concerned with its edu- 
cational activities alone. Hence all such questions as the 
character of its influences, the motives inspiring it, the permis- 
sibility of its methods, the interference of the order in politi- 
cal affairs, the justification of the suppression of the order, 
are aside from our interests, except in so far as the general 
purpose and character of the order determined its conception 
of education. Further, it is possible to consider the organiza- 
tion, content, method, and administration of its system of 
education without an intimate investigation of its spirit and 
purpose, which is something not to be gained from the study 
of plan and records or from the reading of books. It is pos- 
sible to form a favorable judgment of the one without being 
in accord with the other. Certain it is that the schools which 
were the most successful educational institutions of two 
hundred years and educated very many of the learned men 
and leaders of Europe for that period, were not without great 
educational merit. 

The Constitution of the Order, formulated in outline 
in 1540, was not perfected until 1558, after the death of its 
founder Loyola. The constitution consists of ten parts, the 
fourth one of which is the Ratio Studioriini, or System of 
Studies. This, however, was not perfected until much later, 
after repeated conferences by committees of the order. As 
it took its final shape in 1599, remaining unchanged until 
1832, it embodied the experience of the order through more 
than half a century of teaching and experiment as well as a 
full consideration of the experience of others. For these men 
who formulated the Ratio were close students of the subject 
of education, at least on the practical side, and the order 
possessed the advantage of being able to give that continuous 
attention to the subject and that close observation and experi- 
mentation covering a wide scope of territory and a multitude 
of teachers and pupils, such as was possessed by no other 
single educator or group of educators. Since a fundamental 



42 2 History of Education 

principle of the order was implicit obedience to authority and 
the Ratio when once formulated was an expression of that 
authority, we find here a scheme of education that was typical 
in a sense that no other schools were typical. Their function 
was to educate, not for their order alone, but to educate youth 
in general, and to provide them not only with religious educa- 
tion, but with the most advanced secular education of the times. 
So successfully did they do this that they drew students very 
largely from the Protestant communions as well. 

The order had little interest in elementary education, and 
hence in the education of the masses ; it was devoted to the 
education of leaders, and consequently was interested in 
higher education. Two classes of schools were established, 
colleges inferior and colleges superior ; the former correspond- 
ing to the gymnasien and the latter to the universities and 
theological seminaries. It was the policy of the order to 
establish schools only when sufficient contribution had been 
made to insure the support and the success of the instruc- 
tion. Since the members had devoted their lives to the ad- 
vancement of the interest of their order and consequently 
to educational endeavor, the expense connected with the oper- 
ation of these schools was comparatively small. Usually no 
tuition was charged, and in this respect they possessed an 
immense advantage over the corresponding Protestant and 
municipal schools. While in some few cases schools for the 
nobility were established, for the most part the schools of the 
order were conducted wholly upon the principle of merit and 
ability. 

Extent of Influence. — By the second quarter of the 
seventeenth century the number of their colleges had increased 
to 372; by the opening of the eighteenth century to 612 
colleges, 157 normal schools, 24 universities, and 200 missions. 
And at the time of the suppression of the order, after the 
middle of that century, the colleges of both grades numbered 
728. The attendance upon many of the larger of these col- 



The Reformatimi 423 

leges was over 2000 ; the total attendance in the department 
of Paris was over 13,000 ; and in the various national colleges 
at Rome more than 2000. At the time of the suppression, 
the order numbered about 22,000 members, the majority of 
whom were devoted to the work of education. 

Organization. — One other cause of the great success 
of these schools is found in their completeness of organiza- 
tion and continuity of administration. What Sturm did in 
this respect for one school with such remarkable results, the 
Jesuits did for an entire system of schools with correspond- 
ingly wider results. At the head of the order stands the 
general, who is elected for life and, though he must associate 
with him prominent officers in advisory capacity, yet he has 
unlimited power. This insures a stability and a unity of action 
that has made of the order a power respected and feared, and 
on the educational side has produced a perfection of system 
unknown elsewhere in educational administration. The order 
is divided into administrative provinces, each presided over 
by a provincial responsible directly to the general. On the 
educational side are the rectors of the various colleges under 
the provincial, but appointed by the general. In turn, under 
the rectors, are the prefects of studies, the educational super- 
visors, who are appointed by the provincials. The teachers 
are directly supervised by both rector and prefect, and the 
latter must make frequent visits to each class. This constant 
supervision and the constant check exercised on one officer 
by another, as well as the preparatory training of all their 
teachers, prevents any departure from the established 
methods of government and instruction through any indi- 
viduality of teachers and secures an adherence to the general 
system, once established, that makes for a definiteness of 
procedure and a certainty of results that is without parallel 
in schools of that or subsequent times. 

This close supervision, j^mounting almost to repression on 
the one hand and espionage on the other, was also character- 



424 History of Education 

istic of the government of the pupils in the schools. Divided 
up into groups under monitors and into pairs, so that each 
acted as a check upon the other, not only was order secured, 
but an obedience to and respect for absolute authority that 
resulted almost in an elimination of individuality. Notwith- 
standing these characteristics in the way of limitations, there 
were corresponding merits in the matter of educational gov- 
ernment. Discipline was secured through this ever present 
evidence of authority and by dependence upon religious 
motive, so that the great abuse of corporal punishment, so 
characteristic of the time, was almost ehminated. Though 
sometimes resorted to for purposes of government, it never 
was used, as was ordinarily the case, as an educational incen- 
tive. In place of resorting to physical force, the Jesuit teach- 
ers elaborated in their characteristically thorough and practical 
way a system of rewards that made use of the motive of 
emulation to an extent never before employed. 

Preparation of Teachers. — - Yet another cause of the 
educational success of the order was due to the thoroughness 
of teaching in their schools, resulting from the careful prepa- 
ration of picked teachers. The order itself is divided into 
four classes, the professed, coadjutors, scholastics, and nov- 
ices. The novices are those who have been accepted for the 
order after a partial completion of the course of the college 
inferior. They must then complete this course and spend 
two years in religious preparation for the order. The scho- 
lastics complete the college sjiperior and the theological 
course and spend some six years, usually before the theologi- 
cal course, in teaching the inferior course. Then the scho- 
lastic is admitted usually into the rank of coadjutor, where 
most of the order remain. Many of the coadjtito^'es spirit- 
uales become the permanent teachers of the order. Such 
teachers must also receive the normal training of the order. 
Hence their teaching force is mact,2 up for the most part of 
those who have passed through the rigid course of the lower 



The Reformation 425 

and usually of the superior college, while the permanent 
teachers who direct the work of the student teachers are 
trained through a long university and normal career. Those 
best adapted to teaching are selected for this permanent 
service. 

As the members to begin with are picked men, chosen 
usually on account of intellectual superiority, the order ob- 
tained a selected body of teachers far superior to those of the 
secular schools, or, in fact, any schools of the times. This 
superiority was maintained so long as there was no great 
change in the spirit and subject-matter of education. But 
when, with the eighteenth century, there came to be a de- 
cided movement away from the dominant theological spirit 
and the formal humanistic content of education, the Jesuit 
schools tended to lose much of their prestige and superiority, 
a tendency which culminated with the temporary suppression 
of the order. This suppression, however, was not due in any 
respect to the character of the work of the schools, unless it 
was that their success in the education that still controlled 
had produced strong opposition and distrust. 

The Subject-matter of the Jesuit schools has already 
been referred to as of the characteristic humanistic order. 
In this respect they did not differ from the other schools of 
the time, either as to the scope of the material or the purpose 
to be achieved by its use. The same devotion to the study 
of ^^orm, beginning with grammar and terminating with dia- 
lectic, the same effort to give the use of the Ciceronian Latin 
as a living tongue, were to be found. Only the Jesuit 
schools were superior to the other types of schools in that 
they were one and all kept up to the high standard of the 
Ratio, while the greatest variation prevailed among the schools 
under secular control in regard to methods, to the scope and 
the selection of the subject-matter. More attention was 
given to mathematics and to the rudimentary sciences, so far 
as they could be gained through the classical texts, ordinarily 



426 History of Education 

under the name of philosophy, than was usually the case with 
other schools. This was true, at least, so long as there was 
no departure from the ruling abstract theological education, 
such as is to be narrated in the following chapter. 

In \hQ studia s2iperiora, or the higher colleges and universi- 
ties, the full range of the university studies, including the 
sciences, philosophy, and the professional subjects of law and 
medicine, were to be found. The studia inferiora, or lower 
schools, were organized into six classes, — four devoted to 
the study of grammar, the fifth to " humanities," the sixth to 
rhetoric. In the fifth class the chief emphasis was on the 
content, and the histories were chiefly used. The Ratio studi- 
ormn took the attitude common to all the educators of these 
centuries, — that the classical languages and literatures were 
the adequate means to universal culture and effective service 
in society. And for the period when the Ratio was organ- 
ized the assumption was correct. 

Method of Jesuit Instruction. — The most distinctive 
feature of the Jesuit schools was found in their method. 
While the Jesuit teachers wrote many text-books and texts 
"even yet used to a considerable extent, the characteristic 
method for all classes was the oral one. Herein lay one 
other explanation of their success, for it put the teacher and 
taught in such close personal contact that it gave to their 
schools a molding power beyond most others. Next to this 
personal interest and oral method was the principle of 
thoroughness underlying all their work. Each day's work 
for the lower classes was practically one recitation. And 
it was their rule announced even in the Ratio, that but three 
or four lines be given for the day's work for these lower 
classes. Then frequent reviews were given. Each day 
began with a review of the previous one ; each week closed 
with a review ; each year with a review of the year's work ; 
and finally the student destined for the order reviewed the 
entire course by teaching it. 



The Reformation 427 

Each class was divided into groups presided over by decu- 
rions, to whom the boys recited under the general super- 
vision of the master. Another division was into groups of 
two, the rivals, by which means each boy was to become a 
corrective and an incentive to his companion, and was to 
keep watch over his studies as well as over his conduct. A 
larger division of the classes was into groups for discussion 
concerning points of the lesson, grammatical, rhetorical, his- 
torical, etc. These discussions were called coitcertations. 
The brighter boys were organized into academies, where the 
concertation became fully developed dialectic discussions. 
Themes, essays, translations, discussions of classical subjects, 
all entered here. Membership in these was wholly voluntary 
and was one of the forms of reward for merit. 

The formal conduct of the recitation by the teacher was 
termed the prelection, a modified lecture form. In the pre- 
lection, the first step was to give the general meaning of the 
entire passage ; secondly, the meaning and construction of 
each clause was thoroughly explained ; thirdly, under the term 
erudition such information, historical, geographical, archae- 
ological, as related to the passage was presented ; fourthly, the 
explanation of rhetorical and poetical forms with the rules 
were considered ; fifthly, a comparative study of the Latinity 
was made ; and, finally, moral lessons were drawn. Under 
the third was introduced almost all of the subordinate histori- 
cal, geographical, and scientific study that found place in the 
lower schools. 

Their entire work was based upon the principle that it is 
much better to give a small amount in a thorough manner 
than to give a rather indefinite impression or partial mastery 
of a quantity. Hence no single word was left without thorough 
explanation; and while their education was not broad, from 
the modern point of view at least, it was very thorough and 
very effective. The fact that each master in his method had 
back of him the universal custom as well as the training of the 



428 History of Education 

order gave dignity as well as prestige and authority to the 
work of the school ; for it gave confidence to the master and 
strengthened the receptive attitude and the enthusiasm of the 
student. 

Defects and Decline. — After this review of the excep- 
tional excellence of the organization and method of these 
schools, and of the usual humanistic curriculum, some expla- 
nation must be given of the extreme hostility aroused by these 
schools among the Protestants, of the opposition of the 
Roman Catholic Church that occasioned the temporary sup- 
pression of the order, and finally of the fact that their impor- 
tance lies almost wholly in the past and that they do not 
have the success or the prominence now that they once had. 
To a large extent this hostility was due, as was also the sup- 
pression of the order, to the poHtical activities of the order 
and consequently to the opposition of various governments. 
The chief explanation is not far to seek : it is found in the 
application of the fundamental principle of the order, that 
all is to be done for the greater glory of God (A.M.D.G., 
as it passed into the usual formula of the order, that is, ad 
majoreni Dei gloriavt), as that was secured through advanc- 
ing the interests of the Church. In its application this means 
the complete subjection of the individual member to the order, 
and of the order and of all whom it educated or could influ- 
ence to the Church. Once more in principle as well as in 
practice the individual is to disappear completely before the 
institution. Irrespective of the attitude which one now 
takes toward such a principle, the thing to be noticed and 
the thing frankly avowed by the order in its work, as it was 
expressed in the vows of the members, is that their educa- 
tional scheme was directed toward this end, — the complete 
subjection of the individual. The end which every member 
of the order was bound to hold constantly in view in all his 
work was the triumph of the Church over every hostile force 
through the unquestioned obedience of every member and of 



The Reformation 429 

every individual to that authority however expressed. Herein 
was a complete negation of the principle developed by the 
Renaissance. As Macaulay observes, "the Jesuits seemed to 
have found the point up to which intellectual development 
could be carried without reaching intellectual independence." 
It does not change the character of the spirit and purpose of 
such a school of education that on the content side it was 
thoroughly humanistic. That material was so used and such 
methods were employed that the results desired were certain. 

We have previously seen that the results were not far 
different with the Protestant education of the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries. The abstract theological education of 
the times, whether Protestant or Jesuit, was an exaltation of 
authority and a subordination of the individual. This, with 
the Protestant denominations, was in opposition to the very 
principle that had given birth to the Reformation movement, 
and hence by the eighteenth century a reaction toward the true 
individuahstic principle — in part a reaction far beyond the 
original Renaissance form — occurred: while with the Jesuit 
education, both practice and principle were in opposition to 
the new ideals of the Renaissance period that were later to 
enter into the critical, the philosophical, and finally the scien- 
tific advance. Their very method, perfect as it was in its way, 
inhibited all initiative, and prevented the development of all 
spontaneity and of all freedom of opinion. Hence the op- 
position and the subsequent decline, despite the fact that 
during the first century or so of their existence, in both 
subject-matter and method, they were ahead of all rivals. 

The fact that the Roman Catholic Church, and especially 
the Jesuit order, seized upon the method adopted by the 
Protestant bodies for the furthering of their beliefs, — that is 
education through schools, — resulted in the advancement of 
the importance and the influence of schools far beyond what 
they had ever possessed before. 

The Oratory of Jesus was a teaching order founded originally 



430 History of Education 

in Italy in 1558 but independently in France in 161 1. The 
importance of the order as a teaching organization is for the 
most part confined to the latter country, where, after the expul- 
sion of the Jesuits, they came into general control of secondary 
education. Later they themselves were suppressed, to be 
refounded in 1852, to meet a similar fate later. The schools 
were largely devoted to the training of the parochial priesthood. 
In spirit and educational work, the Oratorians were much less 
harsh and rigid, and devoted more time to the vernacular and 
scientific studies as well as to history and philosophy than did 
the Jesuits. So much more liberal were they in their views 
and in their cultivation of individualism, that they fell under 
the suspicion of the Jansenism of the Port Royalists. Hence 
in many respects their educational influence and work occupied 
a middle ground between that of the Jesuits and that of the 
Jansenists. 

The Port Royal Schools. — The schools of this order attained 
their importance not from their number or from the length 
of time that they existed, for they were few and had a career 
of but a scant twenty-four years (163 7-1 661), but from their 
influence and from the fact that they represented both in their 
conception of education and in their method a reaction against 
the dominant Jesuit education. Their influence was wholly 
confined to France, and was exerted chiefly through the writ- 
ings of the members of the order and through their insistence 
upon some principles that were far in advance of the practice 
of the times. Combined with these, however, were other 
principles that, while characteristic of much of the religious 
education of that and succeeding times, were wholly opposed 
to modern educational thought. 

Founded by Duvergier de Hauranne (i 581-1643), better 
known as St. Cyran from the abbey over which he presided, 
the work of the schools and the spread of their educational 
doctrines were due rather to Nicole (1625-1695), Lancelot 
(1615-1695), Arnauld (1612-1694), Coustel (1621-1704), 



The Reformation 431 

Rollin (1661-1741), and others, all of whom wrote educational 
treatises widely circulated. To these should be added as 
representatives of these schools two of their most renowned 
pupils, La Fontaine (1621-1695) and Pascal (1623-1662), 
to whose Provincial Letters we owe much of the publicity 
given to the work of this order and our knowledge of the 
ground of the popular oppositions to the Jesuit education of 
that period. 

The members of the order were termed Port Royalists from 
the convent where first the girls were trained and to which, 
later, when vacated, St. Cyran moved with his solitaries. 
The term little schools was adopted to avoid any appear- 
ance of opposition to the university, which had been extremely 
jealous of the educational work of the Jesuits, and to indicate 
a characteristic practice, that of confining the work of the 
schools to a few picked children who could be influenced 
and shaped through close personal contact with the teacher. 
Individual care of the pupil by the teacher was one of their 
distinguishing marks, though this was carried to such an 
extreme that the child was never left free to himself but 
must be every hour of his childhood under the personal charge 
of his teacher. This practice grew out of their fundamental 
belief that the purpose of education was to shape the moral 
and religious character of the child ; to mold his will by 
surrounding him with good influences. The prevailing 
religious conception in education, that the child's nature was 
wholly evil and that the work of education was to eradicate 
this evil and replace it with a true religious spirit, they carried 
to an extreme. This led to the adoption of some methods 
of work that were far more restrictive and harsh than 
those used by the Jesuit order. On the other hand, the 
motive of their work as enunciated, probably for the first 
time, in all of their writings and shown in their work, 
was that of the love of the child. This same view which 
led to so narrow a conception of education and so restric- 



432 History of Education 

tive a discipline, on the other hand led to a better con- 
ception of subject-matter and method of education. Herein 
lies their practical importance in the development of French 
education. They enunciated the principle that children should 
be compelled to study only that which they could under- 
stand, and that consequently their education should begin 
with the vernacular instead of with Latin. They discarded 
the alphabetical method of teaching to read and to spell, and 
invented a phonic method. After the vernacular was mastered 
the child was introduced to classical literature through transla- 
tions. When Latin was begun, it was taught through a mini- 
mum of grammar and chiefly through translation into the 
vernacular, then through reading of wide selections from the 
classics. The moral training through the use of the subject- 
matter was to come from literature instead of from language. 
Hence there resulted the great influence of this small group 
of men on the development of French literature. These 
educators also favored the use of mathematics. In all of 
these subjects they produced the most serviceable texts. 
Literature, history, mathematics, were to be used on ac- 
count of their content value, but only so far as they could 
be used in shaping character. Their thought was to lay 
the foundations of all schooling in a thorough mastery of 
the beginnings, but to make that mastery as attractive as 
possible to the pupil, by emphasizing content rather than 
form, by building on the understanding rather than the 
memory, and by a greater use of the senses than had been 
the custom previously. These advanced principles came out 
more clearly in their educational writings than in their school 
work. The latter can be judged best by the products of their 
brief career. 

As the Jesuits had made a great advance in the substitution 
of emulation instead of compulsion or fear of physical violence 
as a motive to study, the Port Royalists went a step farther 
in wholly rejecting emulation in favor of piety and love upon 



The Reformation 433 

the part of the child and affection and religious zeal on the 
part of the teacher. It is true that all religious schools de- 
pended to a considerable degree upon these motives. Yet 
owing to the complete elimination of the spirit of rivalry 
from the Port Royal Schools, the difference in spirit from the 
schools of the Jesuits was very great. Nevertheless, the 
former did admit that the pupils were often indifferent. On 
the other hand, the gain in method and content values was 
somewhat counterbalanced by the rigid asceticism and form- 
alism in behavior enforced upon little children. 

Elementary Schools in Protestant Countries. — We have 
previously seen that the chief practical outgrowth of the 
Reformation was in the establishment of a system of schools 
controlled and partly supported by the State, founded on the 
principle that it was the duty of the family, the Church, and 
especially the State to see that every child attended these 
schools and received at least an elementary education. 

The Public School System, of the German States was the 
first of the modern type. In 1524 the city of Magdeburg 
established its schools on the plan advised by Luther. Four 
years later the elector of Saxony adopted a plan for Latin 
schools for the entire electorate, based upon recommendations 
of Melanchthon. Not until 1559 do we find a system of 
schools providing for all the people. In that year the Duke 
of Wurtemberg adopted a plan, though it was not approved 
by the State until 1565. This system, an extension of the 
Saxony plan, provided for elementary vernacular schools in 
every village, in which reading, writing, rehgion, and sacred 
music were to be taught. The Latin schools in every town 
and city were expanded into six classes, instead of the three 
of Melanchthon's original plan for Saxony. Above these 
were the cloisteral or higher Latin schools, which were later 
incorporated with the lower Latin schools into the gymnasien. 
Above these was the university (Tubingen). In 1580 the 
Saxony plan was revised so as to incorporate the elementary 



434 



History of Edttcation 



vernacular schools of the Wlirtemberg system. This code, 
borrowed almost word for word from the Wurtemberg plan, 
remained without substantial revision until 1773. In 1724 
it had been provided that girls as well as boys should attend. 
In 1773 the compulsory provision extending from the fifth 
to the fourteenth year was made effective and the scope of 




A Typical Sixteenth-century School. 



the curriculum broadened. Meanwhile, during the early 
seventeenth century, Weimar, Hesse-Darmstadt, Mecklen- 
burg, Holstein, and others of the German states adopted 
systems that in some respects were in advance of the Wiirtem- 
berg and Saxony plans. The first time that the principle of 
compulsory education for children of all classes was adopted 
by any state was by Weimar in 16 19. It provided that all 
children, girls as well as boys, should be kept in school from 



The Reformation 435 

the sixth to the twelfth year. In 1642 Duke Ernst the Pious- 
of Gotha, who more than any other ruler deserves the credit 
for the founding of the modern system of German schools, 
adopted a comprehensive regulation for the schools of the 
duchy which was in principle and in many details 5iub- 
stantially the system of the German states at the present 
time. Attendance from the fifth year was required of every 
boy and girl in the province. The school year was to be ten 
months in length and the children were compelled to attend 
every day. The school day was to be from nine to twel /e and 
from one to four every day in the week, except that Wednesday 
and Saturday afternoons were free. Parents were '.o be fined 
for non-attendance of children. The subjects /^^ instruction 
were those of the Wurtemberg plan with \he addition of 
arithmetic. The grading of the schools, the details of the 
subjects of study, and the rhethods of instruction were all 
provided for in the general law. 

The Thirty Years' War (161 8-1 648) had disastrous influ- 
ence upon the development of the school systems of all the 
German states and it was not until the eighteenth century 
that school affairs began to make continuous and rapid prog- 
ress. During that century the Prussian school system de- 
veloped, though founded in 1648, and rapidly forged to the 
front in all educational matters. By this time, however, it 
was political rather than religious consideration that was 
determinative in the control of the schools. 

No other people have even approximated the achieve- 
ments of the German states in these respects. Until late 
into the nineteenth century England left all educational 
effort either to the family or to the Church, through special 
institutions of the great public schools, or through special 
societies, such as the Society for the Promoting Christian 
Knowledge (founded 1699), or the British and Foreign School 
Society (founded 1805), the National Society (181 1), and the 
Home and Colonial Infant School Society (1836). 



436 History of Education 

' In Scotland the early Reformation period witnessed many 
efforts toward the establishment of schools under the influ- 
ence of the Church; but it was not until 1696 that an effec- 
tive system was established through the cooperation of 
Church and State. At that time an act was passed requiring 
the landholders of each parish to provide a schoolhouse and 
to support a schoolmaster. In case the landholders did not 
do "his, the presbytery was authorized to apply to the com- 
missioners of the shire, who were then to secure the enforce- 
micnt of the act. There was no uniformity required among 
these schools, but the control of the teacher and the super- 
vision of the schools were largely in the hands of the Church. 
Many of tho' -=; schools offered secondary instruction as well 
as elementary, and sent boys directly to the university. Con- 
sequently the Scottish people had much better educational 
facilities and reached a higher common standard of intelli- 
gence than any other portion of the British Empire. No 
changes of any importance were made in the system until 
the opening year of the nineteenth century,' when provisions 
were made for more than one school in the larger parishes, 
and for changing the power of selection of teachers from 
the Church to the taxpayers. From this time on a system 
of education adequate for towns as well as rural regions 
gradually grew up. 

In Holland a system of elementary schools was established 
under the auspices of the reformed churches. Notwithstand- 
ing the cruelly oppressive Spanish wars of the sixteenth 
century, the synods of the Dutch Reformed Church made 
provision for the education of the youth. But it was not 
until the Synod of Dort(i6i8) that the Church undertook, 
in connection with the State, the establishment of a system 
of elementary schools in every parish. This system was as 
efficient as the chaotic condition of the times would permit, 
and was the origin of the earliest schools in the American 
colonies, for the Church-state of Holland required that the 



The Reformation 437 

respective trading companies should provide schools and 
churches for every one of their settlements. 

In America the earliest systems of schools, however, were 
in the Puritan colonies in New England, and were there as well 
direct outgrowths of the Reformation spirit. The first general 
law providing for schools was passed in 1647 by the Massachu- 
setts Bay Colony. The oft-quoted preamble to that law indi- 
cates the dominant motive. " It being one chief project of 
that old deluder, Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of 
the Scriptures, as, in former times, keeping them in an un- 
known tongue, so in these later times, by persuading them from 
the use of tongues ; so that at last the true sense and meaning 
of the original might be clouded and corrupted with false 
glosses of deceivers ; and to the end that learning may not be 
buried in the graves of our forefathers, in Church and Com- 
monwealth, the Lord assisting our endeavors ; " it was there- 
fore ordered that an elementary school should be established 
in every town of fifty families, and -a Latin school in every 
town of one hundred families. In 1650 the Connecticut 
Colony passed a law of similar import. 

Elementary Education in Roman Catholic Countries. — The 
Christian Brothers performed for elementary education, at 
least in France and to a less degree in other Roman Catholic 
communities, the same service which the Jesuits did for sec- 
ondary education. 

The Institute of the Brethren of the Christian Schools was 
founded in 1684 by Jean Baptiste de la Salle (1651-1719), 
and sanctioned by the Papacy in 1724. By the time of 
the founder's death, the institute numbered 27 houses and 
274 brothers; by the opening of the Revolution 122 houses 
and 800 brothers. The spread of the institute until it was 
established in almost every land, Protestant and Catholic, 
was the work of the nineteenth century. These educational 
ideas and methods are set forth in The Conduct of Schools 
first issued in 1720. The same exactness of detail, of repres- 



43S History of Education 

sion of variation and of uniformity throughout the system 
that characterized the Jesuit Ratio is also found here. 

The conception of education as well as the control exercised 
is thoroughly religious. Both in the control of the order and 
in the conduct of schools the spirit of asceticism is very marked. 
The most emphasized rule of the schools for both pupils and 
teachers was that of keeping silence. The teacher is almost 
forbidden to speak at all. Fewest possible words were to be 
used by both teacher and pupil. 

Punishment was to be used instead of reprimand, signals 
instead of commands, written work was emphasized, and so 
far as possible restrictive and repressive measures were to bo 
brought to bear upon the child. Contrary to the practice oi 
the Jesuit schools, and subject to the regulation of the order 
and with the official instruments, corporal punishment was 
resorted to very freely. 

The subjects of study in the schools were the ordinary 
elementary curriculum : reading, writing, arithmetic, and 
religious instruction. Although elementary study of Latin 
was also provided for higher grades, instruction vvas to be 
primarily in the vernacular. Tuition provided by these 
schools w^as given gratuitously, and in this respect as well 
as in the dominant purpose they resemble the schools of 
the religious associations of England, previously mentioned. 
However narrow and repressive the spirit of the schools and 
the character of the method when compared with the freer 
spirit of the Protestant elementary schools, the scheme of the 
order was far superior in two respects, in which they made the 
first general approach to modern standards. These were 
the training of the teachers and the grading and method of 
instruction. 

One of the greatest defects of the times, especially of the 
elementary schools, due partly to taking the conduct of the 
schools from the immediate control of the Church and partly 
to the unsettled social condition of the times, was the very 



The Reformation 439 

inferior character of the teaching body. No longer now drawn 
from the clergy, with at least some education and no other 
distracting interests, the teachers in the elementary schools 
were largely made up of church sextons, disabled soldiers, 
village cobblers, or various persons whose chief occupations 
were either sedentary or lasting for part of the year only. As 
early as 1685 the Christian Brethren opened what was prob- 
ably the first institution for the training of elementary teachers. 
All the members of the order were to be professionally 
trained for their work. In other of their normal schools, 
founded later, primary schools for practice teaching were 
incorporated. The excellent example thus given waited long 
for any general imitation. 

The improvement made in the method of instruction was 
in the substitution of a simultaneous or class method of recita- 
tion for the prevailing individual method. Usually, each child 
was instructed by most laborious methods in the alphabet, 
simple words,' elementary reading and writing, and rudiments 
of all the elementary branches. Even in the Jesuits' schools, 
while the classes were divided into groups under decurions 
for general discussion, each student finally recited in person 
to the master. In some of the German gymnasien a plan 
similar to the monitorial system later developed in England 
was adopted. The very familiar plan of class recitation, as a 
systematic method, the essential feature of all modern schools, 
was first brought into general use by the Brethren of the 
Institute. This as a matter of necessity required a more 
careful grading of the schools than the previous one based 
upon classification of subject-matter only. 

SELECTED REFERENCES 

General: — 

Adams, Civilization during the Middle Ages, Chs. XVI, XVII. 
Beard, lifartin Luther and the Reformation in Germany. (London, 1889.) 
Beard, The Reformation of the Sixteenth Cetitury in its Relation to Modern 
Thought and Knowledge. (Hibbert Lectures, 1883.) 



440 History of Education 

Cambridge History, The Reformation, Ch. XIX. (London, 1904.) 

Draper, Intellectual Development of Europe, Vol. II. 

Fisher, History of the Reformation. (New York, 1888.) 

Francke, Social Forces in German Literature. (New York, 1897.) 

}A'iM?>'S,&r, Period of the Reformation. (New York, 1884.) 

Jacobs, Martin Lzither. (New York, 1898.) 

Janssen, History of the German People at the Close of the Middle Ages,^ 

Vol. I. (St. Louis, 1896.) 
Kostlin, Martin Luther. (New York, 1883.) 
M oiler. History of the Christian Church. (London, 1892.) 
Ward, The Counter-Reformation. (London, 1889.) 

Special : — 
Barnard, German Teachers and Educators, Chs. III-VIII. 
Compayre, History of Edtication, Chs. VI, VII. (Boston, 1890.) 
Drane, Christian Schools and Scholars, Chs. XX-XXIV. 
Hughes, Loyola, and the Educatiotial System of the fesuits. (New York, 

1899.) 
Laurie, The Development of Educational Opinion, Chs. Ill and VIII. 
Mertz, Das Schjclwesen der Deutschen Reformation. (Heidelberg, 1902.) 
Mullinger, The University of Cambridge. (London, 1888.) 
Nohle, History of the German School System. (Rep. U. S. Com. of Ed., 

1897-1898.) 
Painter, History of Education, pp. 153-194. (New York, 1904.) 
Painter, Luther on Education. (Philadelphia, 1899.) 
Quick, Educational Reforrners, Chs. III-IV. 
Richard, Philip Melanchthoti, the Preceptor of Germany. (New York, 

1898.) 
Russell, German Higher Schools, Chs. II-IV. 
Schwickerath, Jesitit Education. (St. Louis, 1903.) 

TOPICS FOR FURTHER INVESTIGATION 

1. In the educational or other writings of Erasmus, Melanchthon, or any 
other writer of this period, what elements are humanistic and what religious 
and reformatory ? 

2. In the writings of Luther, what place is given or what emphasis 
placed on the right of individual judgment in the use of reason? 

3. From the writings of Melanchthon, Luther, or any writer of Refor- 
mation period, what tendencies to formalism are discoverable? 

4. Describe the method, the curriculum, or the organization of any one 
noted Protestant schooL 



The Reformation 441 

5. What influences, as shown by concrete evidence, were exerted by 
Melanchthon on Protestant schools? by Sturm? 

6. Give a more complete analysis of Luther's educational views. 

7. Summarize the arguments of Paulsen (^Geschichte des Gelehrten 
Unterrichts) or Mertz (^Das ScJnilwesen der Deutschen Refo^'viation') , 
concerning the effects of the Reformation upon universities. 

8. What were the educational ideas and activities of Calvin? of 
Zwingli? of John Knox? 

9. Trace the beginnings of the public school system in Germany and 
its connection with the Reformation movement. 

10. What relation did the Reformation have to the beginnings of public 
school education in any other Protestant country? 

11. What wei'e the merits and defects of either method, curriculum, 
organization, or purpose of the Jesuit education as shown by a detailed 
study of its schools ? 

12. Of the Port Royalists ? 

13. Of the schools of the Christian Brethren? 

14. Give an estimate of the character and value of the educational writ- 
ings of the Port Royalists. 

15. To what extent were the early schools in America due to Reformation 
influences? 

16. Through what sources, English, Dutch, German, etc., did these 
influences come? 

17. What influence did the English Reformation movement have upon 
schools? (See Leach, Schools of England at the Time of tJie Reforma- 
tion^ etc.) 

18. What place should be given to religious exercises and the study of 
religious materid in the modern public school system? 

19. What is the practice of European schools concerning the use of 
religious material in the schools? 

20. What is the legal status of the use of the Bible and of religious 
instruction in the schools of the United States? 

21. What are the arguments of these religious sects which believe that 
education should yet be controlled by the Church? 

22. To what extent are they valid? 

23. To what extent should the religious element enter into the ideal and 
the process of education? 



CHAPTER VIII 

REALISTIC EDUCATION 

WHAT IS REALISM? — Though not usually included 
within the Renaissance period, reaHsm represents but a later 
and higher stage of that movement. As the Renaissance in 
the fifteenth century revealed itself primarily in ideas of 
individual attainment and effort after personal culture, and 
hence became chiefly literary and aesthetic ; so the same 
movement in the sixteenth century became primarily moral, 
reformatory, and hence chiefly religious and political or social. 
In the seventeenth century, through a yet further develop- 
ment of the same spirit and of the same forces, the Renais- 
sance became impersonal, non-social, and directed toward a 
new determination of reahty. Hence it became philosophical 
and scientific. Modern science, which received its first for- 
mulation in the seventeenth century and began to modify edu- 
cational ideas and practices in these tendencies collectively 
called realism, is the full product of the Renaissance revolu- 
tion in thought. This tendency only begins to work itself 
out during the seventeenth century. It has been well said 
that the movement of Greek thought began with investiga- 
tion of and speculation concerning natural phenomena and 
developed into a purely subjective study of man ; whereas the 
Renaissance movement, since stimulated by the rediscovery of 
Greek thought beginning with its highest product, reversed 
the process and began among the early humanists of Italy 
with this subjective study and developed toward the study of 
natural phenomena and the formulation of science. In this 
sense the realism of the seventeenth century is but an earnest 

442 



Realistic Education 443 

of the science of the nineteenth, educationally as well as philo- 
sophically. 

Within the limits of educational realism a somewhat wider 
compass of thought than that relating to the natural sciences 
is included. On the one hand realism reached back to its 
earlier connection with humanism, where it existed largely as 
a protest against the narrowing tendencies of the new learn- 
ing as soon as it became institutionalized ; and on the other 
hand it reached forward and outward as it shaped a working 
conception of a practical education, accepted by many people 
for many generations without the basis of any philosophy or 
the authority of any schools. This is the type to which the 
term " social-realism " is here given. These phases of realism 
were forerunners of the early scientific realism and combined 
with it in varying degrees in the formulation of the various 
types of educational thought characteristic of the eighteenth 
and nineteenth centuries. Each possessed many devotees 
and at least a few expositors. A few of these we shall notice 
in order to understand the details of these movements of 
thought. In the case of the more scientific movement, 
termed " sense-realism," the educators here considered per- 
formed a vital part in the development of thought and in the 
shaping of practice. Those considered under the two earlier 
aspects are expositors of views widely accepted and practices 
widely current, rather than formulators of the new. 

HUMANISTIC-REALISM. The Concept of Education.— 

Humanistic-realism is the reproduction during the sixteenth 
and seventeenth centuries of a view of education character- 
istic of the earlier Renaissance period, now representing a 
protest against the dominant education of the narrow human- 
istic type. The humanistic-realists and the narrow classical 
humanists agreed in looking upon the classical languages and 
literature as-.tthe sole object of study, or at least the sole 
means to an education. With both groups, these languages 



444 History of Education 

and literature made up the school curriculum. To both, these 
represented the highest achievement of the human mind and 
contained not only the widest product of human intelligence, 
but practically all that was worthy of man's attention. Yet 
there existed a fundamental difference in their purpose of 
study. We have previously considered the purpose and the 
spirit of the study of the narrow classicists ; an object wholly 
contained in the linguistic and literary studies ; a purpose 
fully attained with a mastery in writing and in speech of the 
Ciceronian Latin. Their object was to form young Romans, 
to produce a newer Latium. The object of the humanistic- 
realist, on the contrary, was to attain to a knowledge of 
human motives, of human life in institutions, of life in con- 
tact with nature. But to them the realities of nature were 
more completely mastered, the realities of institutional life 
were more truly appreciated by the Greeks and Romans than 
by their contemporaries or by any intervening generation. 
Consequently the fullest expression of the opportunities, 
duties, and interests of life was to be found in the classics. 
Not only were they " in adversity consolatory, in prosperity 
pleasing and honorable," but without them one would "be 
deprived of all the grace of life and all the pohsh of social 
intercourse." Not only did ancient philosophy contain the 
true philosophy of this Hfe, but languages were the key to 
the real understanding of the Christian religion. -Not only 
did mastery of these languages give power of speech, and 
hence influence over one's fellows ; but if miHtary science 
was to be studied, it could in no place be better searched for 
than in Caesar and in Xenophon ; was agriculture to be 
practiced, no better guide was to be found than Virgil or 
Columella ; was architecture to be mastered, no better way 
existed than through Vitruvius ; was geography to be consid- 
ered, it must be through Mela or Solinus ; was medicine to 
be understood, no better means than Celsus existed ; was nat- 
ural history to be appreciated, there was no more adequate 



Realistic Education 445 

source of information than Pliny and Seneca. Aristotle fur- 
nished the basis of all the sciences, Plato of all philosophy, 
Cicero of all institutional life, and the Church Fathers and the 
Scriptures of all reUgion. 

The purpose of the humanistic-realist was to master his 
own environing life, natural and social, through a knowledge 
of the broader life of the ancients ; but both could be gained 
only through a mastery of the literature of the Greeks and 
Romans. Mastery of form was important only so far as it 
was-a'lcey to reality as they appreciated it. Study itself was 
not all of education. Physical, moral, social development 
formed component parts. The formal routine of linguistic 
discipline gave way to a broad and appreciative study of 
hterature. It might even be necessary to resort to the prac- 
tical study of life around one, but after all only for the pur- 
pose of a clear understanding of the text itself. For, when 
understood, literature was a safer and a more comprehensive 
guide to life than a direct study of that life. 

Representative Humanistic-realists. — Since this view was 
developed in opposition to the narrow humanism, it repre- 
sented a somewhat later stage than that of the Renaissance 
leaders. 

Erastmis, who lived to see and to combat this restrictive 
tendency, gives one of the clearest presentations of the posi- 
tion of the humanistic-realist in his System of Studies. 

" Knowledge seems to be of two kinds, that of things and 
that of words. That of words comes first, that of things is 
the more important. But some, while they ' are hastening to 
marry a beardless spouse,' as the saying is, in learning things, 
overlook a care for words and ill-advisedly trying to save 
time fall into the greatest waste. For indeed since things 
are not recognized save by means of signs of the voice, one 
who is not versed in the power of speech, also bhndly gropes 
about here and there in the judgment of things; thus he is 
misled and necessarily makes mistakes. Finally you may see 
that none are more apt to quibble at little turns of speech 



^ 



446 History of Education 

than those who make the boast that they overlook the words 
in considering the thing itself. Wherefore in each class the 
best ought to be learned at once and also from the best 
masters. For what is more foolish than with great pains to 
learn something which afterward you will be compelled with 
greater pains to unlearn. Nothing moreover is more easily 
learned than that which is right and true. But bad things, if 
once they stick in the mind, it is wonderful to tell, how hardly 
they can be torn out. So then grammar claims first place 
and should be taught to youth in both Greek and Latin. . . . 
Having acquired the ability to speak, if not volubly, cer- 
tainly with correctness, next the mind must be directed to the 
knowledge of things. For although from these very authors, 
whom we have read for the sake of improving our language, 
incidentally, in no small degree is a knowledge of things 
gathered, still from the very first principles almost the 
whole knowledge of things is to be sought from the Greek 
authors." 

Erasmus, however, is too broad to be classified by views ex- 
pressed in this one writing. The representative humanistic- 
realists are of at least a generation or even a century later. 

Rabelais (1483-1553) is the better exponent of this view 
and the one most usually taken. The educational importance 
of Rabelais comes, not from any immediate and concrete in- 
fluence on schools, but from the influence his ideas exerted 
upon Montaigne, Locke, and Rousseau. 

A monk, though expelled from one order and in constant 
hostility with the Dominicans to whom he later belonged ; a 
cure, though in open hostility to the Church for the most of 
his life ; a physician, though a scorner of false scientific ideas 
and practices of the times ; a university man and scholar, 
though a trenchant satirist on the humanistic tendencies and 
the learning of his time, Rabelais's great work consisted in 
combating the formal, insincere, shallow life of the period, 
whether in State or Church or school. This satire, couched in 
most violent and exaggerated form, yet contains the truth of 
most of the reformatory aspirations of the sixteenth century. 



Realistic Education 447 

Consequently, the dominant education of words, instead of 
realities, — realities of life, not necessarily of the senses, — 
meets his most forceful condemnation. In place of the old 
linguistic and formal literary education he advocates one in- 
cluding social, moral, religious, and physical elements ; one 
that will lead to freedom of thought and of action instead of 
the complacent dependence on authority, whether of School- 
men, classicists, or Church. His training in medicine led him to 
give unusual emphasis to the developing sciences. It is true, 
according to his views, that almost all of education was to 
be gained through books ; but it was through mastery of their 
contents and for practical service in life. Studies were to be 
made pleasant ; games and sports were to be used for this 
purpose as well as for their usefulness in the physical devel- 
opment of the child and for their practical bearing on his 
duties later in life ; attractive rather than compulsory means 
were favored. In the closing part of a letter from the giant 
Garguantua to his son, the hero of the satire, concerning his 
education, the entire scope of his teachings can be given. 

" I intend, and will have it so, that thou learn the languages 
perfectly. First of all, the Greek, as Ouintilian will have it ; 
secondly, the Latin ; and then the Hebrew, for the holy Scrip- 
ture's sake. And then the Chaldee and Arabic likewise. And 
that thou frame thy style in Greek, in imitation of Plato ; and 
for the Latin, after Cicero. Let there be no history which 
thou shalt not have ready in thy memory ; and to help thee 
therein, the books of cosmography will be very conducible. 
Of the liberal arts of geometry, arithmetic, and music, I gave 
thee some taste when thou wert yet little, and not above iive 
or six years old ; proceed further in them and learn the re- 
mainder if thou canst. As for astronomy, study all the rules 
thereof ; let pass nevertheless the divining and judicial astrol- 
ogy, and the art of Lullius, as being nothing else but plain 
cheats and vanities. As for the civil law, of that I would 
have thee to know the texts by heart, and then to compare 
them with philosophy. 

" Now in matter of the knowledge of the works of nature, 



44^ History of Education 

I would have thee to study that exactly ; so that there be no 
sea, river, or fountain, of which thou dost not know the fishes ; 
all the fowls of the air ; all the several kinds of shrubs and 
trees, whether in forest or orchard ; all the sorts of herbs and 
flowers that grow upon the ground ; all the various metals 
that are hid within the bowels of the earth ; together with 
all the diversity of precious stones that are to be seen in the 
Orient and south parts of the world ; let nothing of all these 
be hidden from thee. Then fail not most carefully to peruse 
the books of the great Arabian and Latin physicians ; not 
despising the Talmudists and Cabalists ; and by frequent 
anatomies get thee the perfect knowledge of the microcosm, 
which is man. And at some hours of the day apply thy mind 
to the study of the holy Scriptures : first in Greek, the New 
Testament with the Epistles of the Apostles ; and then the 
Old Testament, in Hebrew. In brief, let me see thee an 
abyss and bottomless pit of knowledge : for from hence- 
forward, as thou growest great and becomest a man, thou 
must part from this tranquillity and rest of study ; thou must 
learn chivalry, warfare, and the exercise of the field, the 
better thereby to .defend our house and our friends and to suc- 
cour and protect them at all their needs against the invasion 
and assaults of evil-doers. Furthermore I will that very 
shortly thou try how much thou hast profited, which thou canst 
not better do than by maintaining publicly theses and con- 
clusions in all arts, against all persons whatsoever, and by 
haunting the company of learned men, both at Paris and 
otherwhere." 

To this elaborate analysis of the humanistic-realist concep- 
tion, Rabelais adds an exposition of the physical, social, moral, 
and rehgious elements in education in the best Renaissance 
spirit. In regard to his educational views, though quite at 
variance with the remainder of his writings and with his repu- 
tation, Rabelais is to be classed with those early humanists 
who sought to reestablish the broadest conception of the 
liberal education. 

John Milton (1608-1674), the poet, published in 1644 a 
brief Tractate on Education which remains one of the best 
expressions of the views of the humanistic-realists. His ob- 



Realistic Education 449 

iections to the dominant education were, first, against the 
methods of approaching the subject through formal grammar 
and no less formal exercises in composition ; secondly, grant- 
ing that this evil should be removed, a greater one existed in 
the custom of directing the entire attention of the student to 
the mastery of the formal side of the language, without any 
attention to the literary or content side. Again, granting an 
improvement in this respect, a final objection was that all of 
education was not contained in the languages and literature 
of the Greeks and Romans. 

Milton's view of the purpose and nature of education is 
concisely given in a brief paragraph : — • 

" The end of learning," he says, " is to repair the ruins 
of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and 
out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like 
him, as we may the nearest b}^ possessing our souls of true 
virtue, which being united to the heavenly grace of faith 
makes up the highest perfection. But because our under- 
standing cannot in this body found itself but on sensible 
things, nor arrive so clearly to the* knowledge of God and 
things invisible, as by orderly conning over the visible and 
"nferior creature, the same method is necessarily to be fol- 
lowed in all discreet teaching. And seeing every nation 
affords not experience and tradition enough for all kind of 
learning, therefore, we are chiefly taught the languages of 
those people who have at any time been most industrious 
after wisdom ; so that language is but the instrument con- 
veying to us things useful to be known. And though a lin- 
guist should pride himself to have all the tongues that Babel 
cleft the world into, yet, if he have not studied the solid 
things in them as well as the words and lexicons, he were 
nothing so much to be esteemed a learned man, as any 
yeoman or tradesman competently wise in his mother dialect 
only." 

The final purpose of education is given by the dominant 
religious "motives of the time ; the content represents the 
broader humanistic conception of the great poet ; but the 

2G 



450 History of Education 

purpose and method of the use of that content is the realistic 
one. 

There follows a truly marvelous analysis of the work of 
the school that is to provide for the boy's education from 
twelve to twenty-one. For the first year the boy is to receive 
the usual training in Latin grammar, together with arith- 
metic, geometry, and moral training. Then follows the study 
of agriculture through Cato, Columella, Varro ; of physiology, 
through Aristotle and Theophrastus ; of architecture through 
Vitruvius ; of natural philosophy through Seneca and Pliny ; 
of geography through Mela and Solinus ; of medicine through 
Celsus. This study of the natural and mathematical sciences 
is to be supplemented by reading the poets who treated of 
cognate subjects. This list included such as Orpheus, Hesiod, 
Theocritus, Aratus, Nicander, Oppian, Dionysius, Lucretius, 
Manihus, Virgil, and others. Thus the Greek and Latin 
languages were to be learned wholly incidentally to the mas- 
tery of the con*-ent of the literature. In the following stages, 
ethics, economics, politics, history, theology. Church history, 
logic, rhetoric, composition, oratory, were to be mastered 
through the appropriate authors. In this manner, the politi- 
cal orations and treatises, the tragedies, the histories, the 
poetry of the Greeks and Romans were given place in this 
capacious programme. And not in the Greek and Latin 
only, for all of this necessitated the command of Hebrew, 
Chaldee, Syriac, and Italian acquired "at any odd hour." 
The prodigious scope of school work which Rabelais sug- 
gested in jest or for the race was incorporated by Milton 
into the programme of a school. 

The first comment that arises is that of the impossibility of 
accomplishment, except, as has been suggested, to a college 
of Miltons. Beyond this, the plan has the limitation of the 
humanistic-reahst view ; it is an education of information, and 
that gained from books ; an education in which both informa- 
tion and books are overvalued. Yet on the other hand, since it 



Realistic Education 451 

places substance before form, thought above words, practical 
efficiency in life above showy accomplishments, it is a much 
broader view than the dominant, formal, linguistic one. 

In the organization and arrangement of the school, as well 
as in the content and method of its work as further described 
by Milton, there entered much of the rigidity that came rather 
from his Puritan sympathies than from any relation which 
such views might have with the realistic tendency. One per- 
manent contribution made by Milton to education is found in 
the notable definition which he formulated. While the form 
is that of the seventeenth century, the spirit is that of all 
times. "I call therefore," he says, "a complete and gener- 
ous Education that which fits a man to perform, justly, skill- 
fully, and magnanimously all the offices both private and 
public of Peace and War." 

The Effect of Humanistic-realism on School Work is neces- 
sarily a thing which cannot be estimated or traced. It was 
not characterized by any great external difference from the 
dominant humanism either in content or method ; certainly 
not by any difference in organization or administration. Its 
direct influence on schools was only that exerted by individual 
teachers and individual programmes. Rare teachers and 
infrequent schools kept alive these traditions ; but the domi- 
nant classicism overshadowed al' other tendencies in school 
work. Naturally, since with the higher stages the formal 
language was at least mastered, the realistic spirit flourished 
more in the universities than in the lower schools. Yet the 
dominant character of the work of these higher institutions 
was, as has been previously noted, formal, artificial, and more 
or less perfunctory and traditional. The chief importance of 
humanistic realism is that it led directly to the sense-real- 
ism that soon found a place in organized educational work. 

SOCIAL-REALISM. The Educational Concept. — This term 
" social-reaHsm " is adopted to indicate a view of education 



452 History of Education 

held by various educators in previous centuries, but more 
generally accepted during the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries, and then also most clearly expressed in theory. 
This view found its basis in the Renaissance, though its advo- 
cates looked upon the humanistic culture at its best as an inade- 
quate preparation for the Hfeof the gentleman, that is, for the 
educated man. Its great representative, Montaigne, said in 
this connection : " If the mind be not better disposed by 
education, if the judgment be not better settled, I had much 
rather my scholar had spent his time at tennis. . . . Do but 
observe him when he comes back from school, after fifteen 
or sixteen years that he has been there ; there is nothing so 
awkward and maladroit, so unfit for company and employ- 
ment ; and all that you shall find he has got is, that his Latin 
and Greek have only made him a greater and more conceited 
coxcomb than when he went from home." 

Education should shape the judgment and the disposition 
so as to secure for the youth a successful and pleasurable 
career in life. This view regarded education, in the frankest 
and most utilitarian manner, as the direct preparation for the 
life of the " man of the world." Holding a view as far as 
possible from a high idealism, or a rigid asceticism, or a fervid 
emotionalism, these educators looked with unconcealed 
skepticism upon the ordinary routine of the school and the 
accepted deification of the humanists' studies. To them, 
education should be a frank preparation for a practical, serv- 
iceable, successful, happy career of a man of affairs in a 
civilization formal enough in its pretenses, but not over rigid 
in its standard of conduct. To them education was to cul- 
minate, if it was not chiefly to consist in, an extensive period 
of travel for the sake of acquiring experience and familiarity 
with men and customs. Through travel one would acquire 
practical knowledge and the culture which comes from actual 
contact with places and people made familiar through literary 
study. With the social-realists, however, this view usurped 
practically the entire scope of education. 



Realistic Education 453 

With many writers throughout the course of the history 
of education, one finds an acceptance of the view that a 
period of travel and the consequent broadening of one's 
views and one's experience form the proper conckision of 
a long course of study. After the practice of sending 
Roman youths to Greece to complete their education had 
become quite common, Ouintilian discusses this question. 
Ascham devotes a considerable portion of his ScJioolinaster 
to a condemnation of this practice and this conception of 
education which was quite common among the gentry. In 
general, he objects that " Learning teaches more in one year 
than experience in twenty ; and learning teaches safely, 
when experience maketh more miserable than wise." In the 
concrete, his objections are that "a young gentleman, thus 
bred up in this goodly school, to learn the next and ready 
way to sin, to have a busy head, a factious heart, a talkative 
tongue, fed with a discoursing of factions, led to contemn 
God and his religion, shall come home into England but very 
ill-taught, either to be an honest man himself, a quiet subject 
to his prince, or willing to serve God under obedience of 
honest living." This conservative English view of the result 
of grafting Italian and worldly culture on the native English 
robustness was not the common one among the gentry — 
who alone as a class provided an education for their children. 
This is one side only of the picture. Hear Montaigne 
describe the other. 

" That he may whet and sharpen his wits by rubbing them 
upon those of others, I would have a boy sent abroad very 
young. . . . This great world, which some multiply as sev- 
eral species under one genus, is the true mirror wherein we 
must look in order to know ourselves, as we should. In 
short I would have this to be the book my young gentleman 
should study with most attention. Many strange humours, 
many sects, many judgments, opinions, laws, and customs,,teach 
us to judge rightly of our own actions, to correct our faults, 
and to inform our understanding which is no trivial lesson. . . . 



454 History of Education 

In these examples a man shall learn what it is to know, and 
what it is to be ignorant; what ought to be the end and 
design of study; what valour, temperance, and justice are; 
what difference there is between ambition and avarice, bond- 
age and freedom, license and liberty ; by what token a man 
may know true and solid content ; to what extent one may 
fear and apprehend death, pain, or disgrace, 'Et quo qneutque 
modo fii-giasque ferasque taborem. (And how one may avoid, 
or endure each hardship.)' He shall also learn what secret 
springs move us, and the reason of our various irresolutions ; 
for, I think, the first doctrines with which one seasons his 
understanding ought to be those that rule his manners and 
direct his sense ; that teach him to know himself, how to live 
and how to die well. Among the liberal studies let us begin 
with those which make us free ; not that they do not all serve 
in some measure to the instruction and use of life, as do all 
other things, but let us make choice of those which directly 
and professedly serve to that end. If we were once able to 
restrain the offices of human life within their just and natural 
limits, we should find that most of the subjects now taught 
are of no great use to us ; and even in those that are useful 
there are many points it would be better to leave alone, and, 
following Socrates' direction, limit our studies to those of real 
utility." 

Studies are not condemned, but they are subordinated. 
They become but means, partial and insufficient at best, to an 
end which lies wholly beyond and without them. The end is 
found in character, the practical, successful, efficient, useful 
and happy life 'of action. In this sense the ideal is a moral, 
not an intellectual one ; but it is moral in a matter of fact, utili- 
tarian sense. Herein the Renaissance conception of education 
is exalted ; but the Renaissance means to that end is rejected, 
just as in the narrow humanistic education the means was 
accepted but the end unappreciated and neglected. But as 
the one exaggerated the means, so the other drew the concep- 
tion of character out of proportion. It was drawn rather to 
the scale of the individual ; the worth, the success, the prac- 
ticability of this training and of this life tended to be an indi- 



Realistic Education 455 

vidualistic one. Education in its method was to be made 
pleasant to the individual ; in its content was to be immedi- 
ately serviceable to the individual ; in its outcome was to 
equip him with good practical judgment for the affairs of 
life and with enough of learning and of the amenities of 
culture for the enjoyment of leisure hours. 

Social-realism was a type of education not to be found 
widely represented in the schools. They were too much 
given up to grammar and rhetoric to think much of use- 
ful and happy lives ; too much devoted to cramming the 
memory to think of training the judgment. This type of 
realism rather expressed an educational practice : one com- 
mon with the upper classes of society for these centuries in 
most European countries. A course in foreign schools was 
one form adopted, if expense forbade extensive travel with 
a tutor. But it is a conception of education which found 
a presentation in educational writings, and claims as its chief 
representative one of the most charming writers of any age 
and certainly one of the most lovable of " pedagogues." 

Michael de Montaigne (i 533-1 592) presents in his essays 
Of Pedantry, Of the Education of Children, and Of the Af- 
fection of FatJiers to their CJiildre^i the clearest expression of 
this view of education. Considerable difficulty is experi- 
enced in classifying Montaigne as an educational theorist. 
Professor Laurie holds that he is a humanist ; Mr. Quick, 
that he is a reahst ; many other educational students classify 
him as a naturahst. By some he is grouped with Rabelais, 
by others with Bacon and Comenius, by others with Locke, 
and yet by others with Rousseau. The truth is that no two 
of these men can be grouped together in all their views, 
and on the other hand some ideas are common to them all. 
Montaigne does possess points of similarity with each of these, 
and yet differs greatly from each in some important respects. 
The sum of those differences constitutes the best character- 
ization of that view of education here termed social-realism 



456 History of Education 

The truth is that Montaigne as a skeptic refuses to sub- 
scribe to any doctrine save that all of these authoritative 
views of education, as well as of every other aspect of life 
and thought, are to be doubted. But while in regard to 
most subjects his views are wholly of that negative char- 
acter he has some positive view regarding education. 

Montaigne not a Humanist. — Montaigne lived at the. 
height of the literary movement in France, during which 
time the devotion to the rather narrow classicism was carried 
to an extreme. Montaigne himself shared in the common 
practice of making reference in almost every sentence to the 
ideas or words of some of the ancients and thus making a 
parade of learning. But against this very practice, at least 
as an ideal of education, he inveighed. He granted that a 
certain amount of this knowledge was desirable, that "one 
should taste the upper crust of science," but after all merely 
as an accomplishment always to be distinguished from edu- 
cation itself. He inveighed constantly against this miscon- 
ception of knowledge and of education. " We can say, 
Cicero speaks thus ; these were the ideas of Plato ; these are 
the very words of Aristotle. A parrot could say as much. 
But what do we say that is our own } What can we do .'' 
How do we judge .■' " Such knowledge is " like counterfeit 
coin, of no other use or value but as counters to reckon with 
or set up at cards." For the knowledge that came through 
books and was primarily of books, the greatest scorn was 
expressed, since it had nothing to do with the real life of the 
individual. " A misuse enriched with the knowledge of so 
many things does not become ready and sprightly. A vulgar 
understanding can exist by the side of all the reasoning and 
judgment the world has collected and stored up without 
benefit thereby." 

And again he says, in reference to the education in words 
then prevalent : " The world is much given to babbling : I 
hardly ever saw a man who did not rather prate too much, 



Realistic Edzication 457 

than speak too little. Yet the half of our life goes in this 
way." Consequently the education favored is far removed 
from the dominant classicism and pedantry. " I would not 
have this pupil of ours," he declares, " imprisoned and made 
a slave to his work, nor have him acquire the morose and 
melancholy disposition of the sour, ill-natured pedant. I 
would not have his spirit cowed and subdued by tormenting 
him fourteen or fifteen hours a day, as some do, making a 
pack horse of him, neither should I think it good to en- 
courage an abnormal taste for books, if it be discovered that 
he is too much addicted to reading." 

Learning is not to be identified with education ; knowledge 
is not the chief end in life nor the chief factor in life. Nor 
can the real wisdom of life be gained iti the ways of the 
schools. " For though we may become learned by other 
men's reading, a man can never be wise but by his own 
wisdom." 

Montaigne not a Humanistic-realist. — Consequently 
he turns to those views which have led many to classify him 
with the humanistic-realists. " Let our pupil be furnished 
with things — words will come only too fast ; if they do not 
come readily, he will reach after them." But what is meant 
here by tilings is ideas. His constant preference for the 
education of the Spartans as contrasted with that of the 
Athenians, gives this distinction, and is thus expressed in one 
place : " The Athenians bothered their brains about words, 
the Spartans made it their business to inquire into things ; 
in the one city there was a continual babble of the tongue, in 
the other a constant exercise of the mind." So far as he 
sanctions the use of books, he is, as a matter of course, at one 
with Rabelais and Milton ; but his point of view and his 
conception of education are far different. 

Not a Sense-re ay.] ST. — Nor can Montaigne be classed 
with the sense-reaH'sts who followed. While he beheved in 
f:hc training of the, senses, it was because he held that these 



458 History of Education 

were all that was perfectible in man ; he emphasized the im= 
portance of the physical element in education, because he 
believed, with the ancients, a sound body to be the basis of 
a sound mind ; he believed that the vernacular should 
come first and should be taught by natural methods. But 
these positions were taken in opposition to the extremely 
artificial humanistic education of his times rather than from 
any new philosophy of the mind or of nature. His constantly 
expressed preference for things relates to the realities of 
thought rather than to those of the phenomenal world as 
with the sense-realists. If it is said, by way of rebuttal, that 
the humanists also sought for the realities of life and thought, 
the answer is to be made that the typical educational human- 
ists of Montaigne's time and of the following centuries made 
no such search ; or, if they did, searched in a very limited 
source and by inadequate methods. 

Montaigne not a Naturalist. — -The third classification 
of Montaigne, that with the naturalistic educators of the type 
of Rousseau, is founded upon a similarity of views in many 
details ; but in most fundamental characteristics the views of 
the two men are radically different. Rousseau, for example, 
educates by complete isolation from the world, beHeving that 
all that society furnishes is evil. Montaigne, on the contrary, 
as we have seen, would send the boy early into the world; — 
he himself was sent to college at six years of age and to 
university at thirteen ; — and believing that the best in life was 
to be gotten from immediate contact with man would educate 
him for life in society. In fact, with all his skepticism, this 
arch-skeptic has an abiding faith in human nature and bases 
his education upon this faith. He does believe that one can 
learn only through experience ; not, however, simply through 
his own experience as with Rousseau, but rather through the 
experience of others. Hence the great stress that is laid 
upon contact with men and the study of history. " In this 
acquaintance with men, my purpose is that he should give 



Realistic Education 459 

chief attention to those who hve in the records of history. 
He shall by the aid of books inform himself of the worthiest 
minds of the best ages. — Let him read history, not as an 
amusing narrative, but as a discipline of the judgment." 

Montaigne's Conception of Education. — But few words 
more are necessary to give in concrete terms Montaigne's 
conception of the aim of education, expressed as it is in most 
varied terms of virtue or character and of the practical wis- 
dom of the world. " It is not enough to tie learning to the 
soul, but to work and incorporate them together ; not to tinc- 
ture the soul merely, but to give it a thorough and perfect 
dye ; and if it will not take color and meliorate its imperfect 
state, it were, without question, better to leave it alone." " It 
is not the mind, it is not the body that we are training ; it is 
the man, and we must not divide him into two parts." His 
idea of virtue he expresses in one place in his conception 
of the function of the teacher ; he should 

" make his pupil feel that the height and value of true 
virtue consists in the facility, utility, and pleasure of its exer- 
cise, and that by order and good conduct, not by force, is 
virtue to be acquired. . . . Virtue is the foster mother of all 
human pleasures, who, in rendering them just, renders them 
also pure and permanent; in moderating them, keeps them 
in breadth and appetite. If the ordinary fortune fails, virtue 
does without, or frames another, wholly her own, not so feeble 
and unsteady. She can be rich, potent, and wise, and knows 
how to lie on a soft and perfumed couch. She loves life, 
beauty, glory, and health. But her proper and peculiar office 
is to know how to make a wise use of all these good things, 
and how to part with them without concern — an office more 
noble than troublesome, but without which the whole course 
of life is unnatural, turbulent, and deformed." 

Not a high idealism, it may be objected, certainly no rigid 
asceticism ; yet a wholesome corrective of the formal moral- 
ity of the time, and of the pedantic scholarship which passed 
for education. It is a frank statement of an honest, if some- 



460 History of Education 

what materialistic morality ; if inferior at many points to the 
abstract, authoritative, and ineffective idealism, of the times, 
it at least is practicable and far superior to the actual state 
of affairs. 

The adequate preparation for such a life is found in the 
study of philosophy, which should teach us not what to think, 
but how to live. " The true philosophers, if they were great 
in knowledge, were yet much greater in action." By a study 
of their example and their words " a man shall learn what it 
is to know, and what it is to be ignorant; what ought to be 
the end and the design of study ; what valor, temperance, and 
justice are; what difference there is between ambition and 
avarice, bondage and freedom, license and liberty ; by what 
token a man may know true and solid content ; to what extent 
one may fear and apprehend death, pain, or disgrace." Such 
further studies as are needed can be selected by the same 
principle. "Among the liberal studies let us begin with those 
which make us free ; not that they do not all serve in some 
measure to the instruction and rise of life, as do all other 
things, but let us make a choice of those which directly and 
professedly serve to that end." Herein is stated the principle 
that is coming to be accepted in modern times. In a story 
from the Greeks, which Montaigne quoted, the same principle 
is expressed even more trenchantly : " Agesilaus was once 
asked what he thought most proper for boys to learn } 
'What they ought to do when men,' was the reply." The 
traditional studies are not to be neglected. But their impor- 
tance is secondary and depends much upon the method. 
" After having taught your pupil what will make him wise 
and good, you ma}^ then teach him the elements of logic, 
physics, geometry, and rhetoric. After training, he will 
quickly make his own that science which best pleases him." 

The principles of method enunciated follow as corollaries 
from the general conception given. Knowledge is to be 
assimilated, action to be imitated, ideas are to be realized in 



Realistic Education 461 

conduct. " A boy should not so much memorize his lesson 
as practice it. Let him repeat it in his actions. We shall 
discover if there be prudence in him by his undertakings ; 
goodness and justice, by his deportment; grace and judg- 
ment, by his speaking ; fortitude, by his sickness ; tem- 
perance, by his pleasures; order, by his management of 
affairs; and indifference, by his palate." Herein, again, are 
given both the elements in the ideal and the character of the 
method. Probably the most famous statement of method 
found in Montaigne, one which contains the gist of all his 
educational ideas, is one most frequently known in the man- 
ner condemned therein. Apropos of the traditional verbal 
instruction, he remarks: "To know by heart only is not to 
know at all ; it is simply to keep what one has committed to 
his memory. What a man knows directly, that will he dis- 
pose of without turning to his book or looking to his pattern." 

It follows from these principles previously stated that learn- 
ing should be pleasurable to the child ; effort should be taken 
to make it attractive. For the same reason the harsh meas- 
ures adopted in most schools to secure application and indus- 
try are wholly condemned and rejected. 

The sum total of the views on education, whether of pur- 
pose, content, or method, Montaigne expresses in words from 
Cicero: "The best of all arts — that of living well — they 
followed in their lives rather than in their learning." 

SENSE-REALISM. The General Characteristics of Sense- 
realism. — By this term is indicated that conception of edu- 
cation, '^formulated during the seventeenth century, which 
grew out of and included the characteristic phases of the 
earher realism previously described, but in addition contained 
the germs of the modern conception of education whether 
stated in psychological, sociological, or scientific terms. The 
term itself is derived from the fundamental belief that knowl- 
edge comes primarily through the senses, that education is 



462 History of Education 

consequently founded on a training in sense perception rather 
than on pure memory activities and directed toward a differ- 
ent kind of subject-matter. So far as most of the character- 
istics mentioned are concerned, the term " early scientific 
movement," though it would not so clearly indicate the con- 
nection of the tendency with previous development, would be 
quite as accurate. For the first time we find formulated a 
general theory of education based upon rational rather than 
upon empirical grounds. For these reasons Von Raumer 
termed this group, including some of the more modern 
reformers who received their inspiration from this earlier 
thought, innovators. This term, or the term realists, has been 
frequently used to include the group of men or the tendency 
here defined with greater distinctness. Influenced by the 
new discoveries then being made in nature's processes, and 
the new inventions contrived to take advantage of her forces, 
imbued with an interest in and a respect for the phenomena 
of nature as a source of knowledge and truth, these realists 
held that education itself was a natural rather than an arti- 
ficial process ; and, further, that the laws or principles upon 
which education should be based were discoverable in nature. 
This belief gave rise to two tendencies observable in the work 
of all the representatives of this group ; first, that toward 
the formulation of a rudimentary science or philosophy of 
education based upon scientific investigation or speculation 
rather than upon pure empiricism ; and, secondly, toward 
replacing the exclusive literary and linguistic material of the 
school curriculum with material chosen from natural sciences 
and from contemporary life. The first tendency constituted 
the earliest attempt, at least since the time of the Greeks, to 
formulate an educational psychology, though but a very rudi- 
mentary one. While several of these men insisted upon the 
study of the child and the adaptation of the educational 
processes to the child, their thought in respect to these edu- 
cational principles was controlled rather by their theory of 



Realistic Education 463 

knowledge and, as with Bacon, by their investigation into the 
manner in which knowledge was advanced by humanity as a 
whole. They possess little if any knowledge of the devel- 
opment and activities of the child's mind. The view held by 
all of those men, which seems to us a commonplace and self- 
evident truth, — that the child should acquire the idea rather 
than the form, should understand the object before the word, 
or the word through the object, — constituted for this period 
a revolution in thought and, so far as carried out, one in 
practice as well. This, moreover, led to another innovation, 
which in that it necessitated the use of the vernacular in 
the earlier school years produced a practical and a per- 
manent reform. While we have seen that both with the 
early Protestant reformers and with the Port Royalists the 
[ importance of the vernacular was emphasized, this importance 
\ was first established on strictly educational grounds by the 
sense-realists. It is true that during the seventeenth century 
the vernacular came into more common use; that in diplo- 
macy and court life, the French superseded the Latin; and 
that in Germany before the close of the century the number 
of books published in the vernacular outnumbered those 
printed in Latin. But the very point to be emphasized is 
that this tendency under consideration was the first general 
response of education to the new social, scientific, and philo- 
sophic ideas which were the logical outcome of the Renais- 
sance movement. 

Along with this tendency to substitute the natural and 
social development of the child for the formal ends of edu- 
cation previously held, the natural and social sciences for 
the purely linguistic curriculum, and the vernacular for the 
Latin tongue, went a corresponding change in method. 
This was the effort toward the formulation of a method 
appropriate to the new subject-matter and the new aim. 
While not grasped at all by the earliest realists, the re-formu- 
lation of this method, or the new emphasis placed upon it, 



464 History of Education 

constituted the chief claim to greatness of one whom we have 
here included in this group, — Francis Bacon. The educa- 
tors of this group who came later in time than Bacon, all 
adopted this method of induction as one of the keys if not 
the most important key to the solution of all educational dif- 
ficulties. Educationally, this thought developed into the idea 
of a general method, by which all children could be taught 
all subjects, in a way wholly novel and so expeditiously that 
instead of the meager results of previous times, both ■:\% 
regards the number of pupils who attained to any results 
and as regards the amount accomplished by the few who suc- 
ceeded at all, all children would now be able to master all 
subjects. 

It is necessary, therefore, to refer to one other character- 
istic of seventeenth-century thought in order to understand 
these sense-realists or early scientists in education. In this 
thought of the great possibilities of the new education, they 
but shared in the visionary hopes of the times. Partly as a 
reaction against the disappointment experienced on account 
of the failure of either the reform in religion or the recovery 
of the classical learning to bring about any great and rapid 
social betterment, the thinkers and writers of the period who 
strove for the general improvement of mankind turned to the 
new sciences and the new method for the solution of these 
evils. This general tendency, termed the " pansophic move- 
ment," endeavored through the universal dissemination of 
knowledge concerning life and nature, and by means of the 
new method, to raise the average of human attainment, 
thought, and activity to the level reached hitherto only by 
the favored few. 

When unified, reduced, and organized by the application of 
the new method of induction, the sense-realists held knowl- 
edge to be comparatively simple. By means of the new 
method and the previous use of the vernacular all the neces- 
sary languages could be mastered as well, and within the time 



Realistic Education 465 

and effort allotted to the mastery of one under the old system. 
Upon the basis of this unified and simplified knowledge which 
consequently could be mastered by every individual, the race 
could go on in that course of discovery, invention, and self- 
improvement which, while partially realized in intervening 
centuries, yet forms the ideal and the inspiration of the race. 
Upon this uniform method and content of education they 
based their hopes, first of a unified language — at least uni- 
fied national languages ; upon that the hopes of a unified 
religion in place of the innumerable dissenting bodies then 
existing ; and upon that a unified political life and organiza- 
tion. It is to be noted, however, that rationality, not 
authority, was to form the basis of all this. This — the new 
education of the seventeenth century — was expressed in the 
educational writings of the times ; however, it acquired but 
slight influence upon the schools, and that of gradual, almost 
imperceptible, growth. 

Some Representative Sense-realists. — A movement so last- 
ing and so fundamental naturally found expression in the 
writings and in the work of " many men, some of whom 
perceived the new idea in a few of its aspects only, while 
others grasped it in its entirety. Two or three of these 
representatives who wrote before the philosophy of the move- 
ment had been formulated by Bacon and Descartes are quite 
worthy of study if space permitted. Among these are the 
Frenchman, Peter Ramus; the Spaniard, Ludovico Vives ; 
the Enghshmen, Mulcaster, Hoole, Hartlib, Petty, and the 
philosopher Bacon ; and above all the Czech, Comenius. 
But two of these, Bacon and Comenius, can be studied in 
detail. 

Richard Mjtlcaster {\^1\-\6i\) was one of the earliest of 
these. One of the most famous of early English school- 
masters, ^ for he served as the headmaster of the Merchant 
Taylors' School from 1561 to 1586 and of St. Paul's from 
1586 to 1608, — he speaks with the authority of a practical 



466 History of Education 

schoolman as well as that of a theorist. All the more inter- 
esting from his service at the head of these great Renaissance 
schools is his main argument in regard to education ; namely, 
that the study of the vernacular should precede both in 
time and in importance the study of Latin. This is urged 
both because it is the native tongue and because it is the 
only language that the majority of the boys even of the Latin 
schools will ever use. Mulcaster was far from believing 
that education should be universal, but he held that it should 
be effective with those for whom designed. He possessed 
the courage of his convictions, and wrote in the English 
tongue with such excellence, in the formal style characteristic 
of the times, that he frankly but rashly claimed that his 
writings constituted the appropriate models in the new study 
as did Cicero in Latin or Demosthenes in Greek. The view 
concerning the importance of the vernacular, advanced in 
his earlier work, was elaborated in a treatise devoted entirely 
to the subject, entitled TJic Elenientarie, which entreateth 
chieflie of the right Writing of tJie English tnng. In his work 
published in the preceding year (1581), entitled Positions 
wherein those circnmstances be examined, ivhich are necessary 
for the training up of childi'en either for skill in their booke, or 
health in their bodie, he expresses views that entitle him to 
be classed among the reformers of the following century. 
The " positions " expounded are forty-five in number, but the 
greater number of them relate to the training of the body and 
of the disposition through games and exercises. Since the 
natural abilities of the child are to be considered and studied, 
and since they are developed primarily by physical training, 
such training is a component part of his idea of education. 
The three natural powers in children are "Wit to conceive 
by, Memory to retain, Discretion to discern by " ; not a very 
exhaustive psychological analysis but a move in the right 
direction. In both treatises the idea of education according 
to nature is advanced, and in a much saner form than the 



Realistic Edit cation 467 

eighteenth-century exaggeration. As a reaction against the 
formal, repressive school work of the times, which aimed at 
the eradication of many of the tendencies and activities 
natural to childhood, Mulcaster held that education should 
not aim either to force or to repress the child, but that " the 
end of education and training is to help nature to her perfec- 
tion." Two or three corollaries of great importance follow 
from this view of the nature of education ; one, that while all 
children can profit by some elementary training in the ver- 
nacular, yet on the other hand too many seek the higher 
education in the classical tongues which is not fit for all ; 
another that education of both grades should be for boys and 
girls alike ; further, that education in the schools is preferable 
to education by tutors. This latter view led to the elabora- 
tion of -2^ position that forms one of the remarkable previsions 
of the work, that is, concerning the training of teachers. The 
arguments for the training of teachers are fully stated, but, 
in addition, Mulcaster holds that the universities should pro- 
vide for this as for the professions of the law, medicine, and 
the ministry. The sixteenth-century prevision awaited the 
close of the nineteenth century for its fulfillment. 

Aside from the emphasis upon plays, games, and exercise, 
with their general physical and moral results, Mulcaster has 
little to say concerning the chief feature of sense-realism, 
that is, the training of the senses through a study of the 
phenomena of nature. But in his views regarding the train- 
ing of the body, the limited value of Greek and Latin, the 
universal value of the vernacular, the demand for a study of 
the child, the demand that education be made pleasurable and 
in his view of education according to nature, Mulcaster is 
at one with the later members of this group and is one of 
their important forerunners.^ 

1 More adequate treatment of Mulcaster will be found in Barnard, English 
Pedagogy, 'm'iX. series, pp. 177-lS^; Oliphant, F ducational Writijigs of Richard 
Mulcaster (Glasgow, 1903); Quick, Educational Reformers^ Ch. VIII; Quid:, 



468 History of Education 

Francis Bacon (1561-1626). — Highest among those who 
caught a preliminary glimpse of the coming reforms in the 
character of the intellectual hfe and in education, and above 
those who made the specific application of these new discov- 
eries to education, stands the English philosopher Francis 
Bacon. He possessed little knowledge or interest in either 
educational questions or processes, and wrote little directly 
on either topic ; yet he it was who gave learning or sci- 
ence, and consequently education, a new basis, a new pur- 
pose and a new tendency.^ Bacon was not the discoverer of 
new ideas, for he but sums up the Renaissance tendencies 
against authority in the intellectual world and toward the 
discovery of the realities of the phenomenal and of the 
thought world ; nor, since the inductive method is used in a 
practical way by every human being and had been used in a 
scientific way by the later Greek philosophers and by some of 
those who shared their intellectual inheritance, was he even 
the discoverer or inventor of a new method. 

Bacon gave to philosophy or to science, that is, to the intel- 
lectual life, a new purpose, in that he rejected the previously 
accepted aim, — that of the theoretic formulation of knowl- 
edge, — in favor of the practical and useful aim. Of the past 
he says: "Philosophy and the intellectual sciences, are 
adorned and celebrated like statues, but like statues, are not 
moved from the spot whereon they stand." This condition he 
contrasts with that of the mechanical arts, which " are daily 
increased and brought to perfection " because their aims are 
practical and useful. The intellectual hfe is to be made 
fruitful, as the old speculation was not, by being made prac- 
tical. What is true of the intellectual life in general is more 
so of its method, — education. In becoming fruitful it becomes 
useful to the many instead of attainable only by the few. 

Mulcaster^s Positions (London, 1888) ; Watson, Mtdcaster and Ascham (New 
York, 1899). 

^ See Fisher, Francis Bacon and his Times. 



Realistic Education 469 

This f ruitfulness was to be gained by giving the intellectual 
life, or science, a new foundation, — nature. This practical 
knowledge must be of our natural environment, its phenomena 
and its processes rather than th^ knowledge of the phenom- 
ena of the mind, interest in which had absorbed all philos- 
ophy from the time of the early Greeks. Neither theology 
nor ethics nor metaphysics, the bases of previous philosophies, 
but physics was to serve as the foundation of the new. Even 
the moral and political philosophies were to receive new 
meaning — they found little if any in the past — by being 
founded on or referred to the natural sciences. In this 
position Bacon foretold, though he did not clearly foresee, the 
evolutionary formulation of those sciences and paved the way 
for their eighteenth and nineteenth century development. 
How much more would this be true of education according to 
the views of the Baconian disciples. It is in this particular 
that the significance of the sense-realism of this period is 
found, — in that later formulation of this educational doctrine 
in the theory that all knowledge comes primarily through the 
senses. Bacon himself had no full grasp of the idea. So 
also had none of his followers till Locke. They were con- 
cerned with the objective process, how knowledge is pro- 
duced and made practical for the race, not how it is 
acquired psychologically by the individual. 

The new tendency given to the intellectual life and to 
education was away from the formalism of the old learning, 
toward the realism of the new ; from dealing with words 
and abstractions, to dealing with objects and ideas. The 
tendency of the intellectual life was not toward the formula- 
tion of closed systems of thought which were satisfied with 
definitions and abstract formulations. Nor was education 
directed toward a mastery of words and logical power 
in handling the syllogism developed through a discipline in 
grammatical forms, and in "defining," "determining," and 
" disputing." No matter whether developed through Roman 



470 History of Education 

or Protestant theological scholasticism, through Aristotelian 
metaphysics and philosophy, or through humanistic and lin- 
guistic formalism, the fundamental pedagogical idea is the 
same. Intellectually, the new tendency in thought was directed 
toward the formulation of fruitful principles of interpretation 
and methods of investigation that could never produce a per- 
fected system of thought; educationally, it was concerned 
with the entire realm of the knowledge of nature and of society 
and with the use of a method that would develop in the 
individual power of dealing with this world of reality. 

Bacon himself was not the first, nor the only one of his 
times, to participate in these tendencies ; for Copernicus, 
Vives, Da Vinci, and others worked immediately before him, 
and Galileo, Descartes, Kepler, Grotius, Boyle, and others 
along with him. But Bacon, of them all, seized the whole 
problem, stated its terms, and formulated its equations. In 
actual solutions he did less than many of the others. In 
1592 he stated to his father: " I have as vast contemplative 
ends as I have moderate civil ends, for I have taken all 
knowledge to be my province ; and if I could purge it of two 
sorts of powers, whereof the one with frivolous disputations, 
confutations, and verbosities (the Schoolmen), the other with 
blind experiments and auricular traditions and impostures 
(unmethodical investigators, e.g. alchemists, astrologers, etc.) 
hath committed so many spoils, I hope I should bring in 
industrious observations and profitable inventions and dis- 
coveries — 'the best state of that province." His plan as 
indicated in the introduction to the Instaiiratio Magna was 
to erect a new temple of human wisdom, not using the ma- 
terial of the old, which he thought altogether useless and 
unsafe. " It is idle to expect any great advancement in 
science, from the superinducing and engrafting of new things 
on old; we must begin anew from the very foundation unless 
we would revolve forever in a circle with mean and con- 
temptible projects." He draws this design not only for his 



Realistic Education 471 

own work, but for all future intellectual effort, for which his 
own was to serve but as a model in miniature. The first 
part of his plan was to survey human knowledge in its exist- 
ing stage, to construct a chart or map of the intellectual 
world, including not only these facts well known, — the pre- 
vious systems, ■ — ■ but also those unknown or barren regions 
which, though ready for exploration, had rarely been visited 
by the human mind. This he did in his Advancement of 
Learning, the only part of his plan even approximately 
completed. The second part of his work was to formulate 
the method for the investigation of phenomena, the deter- 
mination of the process by which the new edifice was to be 
erected upon the foundation previously laid. This is the 
Novum Orgamim, the new method, — induction, — opposed 
to the Organon of Aristotle, which had determined the intel- 
lectual methods of centuries. Bacon only finished a part of 
this work, but sufficient to give a profound and determining 
influence to all modern thought. Third, was his design to 
collect the results of experience with nature as an " Experi- 
mental History of Nature." Only fragmentary portions of 
this work, such as the Sylva Sylvanim, were ever completed. 
Fourth, he was to attempt an outline plan of natural phi- 
losophy, the detailed design of the superstructure, from the 
material collected in carrying out the second and third por- 
tions of his plan. The fifth and sixth parts of his plan, the 
edifice itself, were to consist in the collection of the empirical 
results already attained and the formulation of the true phi- 
losophy of nature. While scattered fragments of Bacon's 
works refer at least to the fifth portion of this outline, he did 
little, and necessarily could do little, with the latter half of 
his plan ; for, in the first place, all succeeding time has been 
at work along these lines without reaching Bacon's ideals ; 
and, in the second place, his great purpose was not to com- 
plete a system of thought, but to mark out lines of intellectual 
endeavor and advance. 



472 History of Education 

The Educational Influence of Bacon may be briefly 
summed up under the heads previously mentioned, the new 
purpose and basis, or his influence on the subject-matter of 
education, and the new method. 

Subject-matter. — Bacon's aspirations for a formulation 
and reorganization of the entire realm of human knowledge 
such as would serve for the improvement of human' welfare, 
even for the regeneration of society, by basing it not upon 
the old literary knowledge which concerned itself with man, 
but upon the new scientific knowledge which concerned itself 
with nature and hence dealt with uniformity and not varia- 
bility, were shared by many philosophers, educators and 
statesmen of his time. This was the "pansophic" ideal of the 
seventeenth century. Knowledge when unified was a com- 
paratively simple thing, they held. They held that when 
based upon the uniformity of nature instead of upon the vari- 
ability of man, it dealt with laws and principles that could be 
investigated and determined by definite methods, not by guess- 
work ; it dealt with forces that could be controlled and used 
for human progress; that were dynamic rather than static in 
character. Such knowledge must be derived primarily from a 
study of the phenomena of nature ; and only secondarily from 
the- phenomena of the mind, that is, from the language, the 
literature, the philosophy, and the theology of past generations. 
Education through the schools should secure the dissemination 
of this knowledge, because when unified it would be within the 
grasp of every child. And when so disseminated the problems 
of society, especially those of diversity in human speech, in 
human beliefs, and in human government would be solved. 
Bacon even held that education, under the name of tradition, — • 
that is, the transfer of the intellectual possessions of the race 
from one generation to another, — should be an object of study 
in itself, as the most important of social processes. 

Within the centuries since the opening of the Renaissance 
man's empirical knowledge of the material universe and his 



Realistic Education 473 

power over it had been marvelously expanded. The world 
of thought had not kept pace with this. The problem, to 
Bacon, was to expand the intellectual world until it should not 
only correspond to and keep pace with this expansion, but 
should precede it. He considered that it was dishonorable that 
" the boundaries of the intellectual world should be confined 
to the discoveries and straits of the ancients." Consequently, 
study was to be directed toward the phenomena of nature as 
the only means of bringing about this equilibration between 
practical opportunity and duties and knowledge. With his 
followers this new and productive kind of knowledge was to 
be made the subject-matter of school work ; not because 
knowledge came only through the senses, — a principle not 
yet fully formulated in its modern meaning, — but because 
such knowledge was the only real and fruitful knowledge, 
because such knowledge made up the bulk of the whole pan- 
sophic scheme of thought, and because the renovation of 
society was thus to be brought about. This is the earlier 
form of sense-realism in education. Education now received 
a more than individualistic value of either religious or practical 
character, and derived a hitherto unknown social value. Edu- 
cation, as science itself, was with Bacon but a means to an 
end, — the dominance of man over things; "human science 
and human power coincide." To such knowledge and to such 
power, there was no limit. If the expectations of these men 
led by the pansophic ideal appear to us now as wholly vision- 
ary, no less so to their own times did those specific instances 
of the expansion of human power through knowledge of na- 
ture, clearly foreshadowed by Bacon and realized only in the 
present. His entire teaching, in regard to both the purpose 
and subject-matter of education, is summed up in a single brief 
paragraph written of the whole intellectual life : " Man is but 
the servant and the interpreter of nature ; what he does and 
what he knows is only what he has observed of nature's 
order in fact or in thought ; beyond this he knows nothing 



474 History of Education 

and can do nothing. For the chain of causes cannot by any 
force be loosed or broken, nor can nature be commanded 
except by being obeyed. And so those twin objects, human 
Knowledge and human Power, do really meet in one; and it 
is from ignorance of causes that operation fails." 

Little explicit reference is made in any of Bacon's works to 
the particular bearing of his general ideas concerning knowl- 
edge on concrete educational work. However, the closing 
portion of his incomplete Utopia, TJie Neiv Atlantis, is 
devoted to a description of the ideal educational institutions 
the investigating university, called Solomon's House, which 
foreshadows much that universities, scientific departments of 
governments, and learned investigators now do and much 
besides in a scientific way that is yet in the realm of un- 
achieved human aspiration. The modification of species, 
animal and plant; curative methods, through hypodermic 
serum infusions ; the modification of metals, as in steel ; the 
transformation of various forms of energy; the steam en- 
gine; communication at a distance, were some of these remark- 
able previsions of scientific innovations. Yet even here it is 
the spirit and the principle rather than the detail that is 
significant. 

Method. — In order that science and by inference educa- 
tion should become practical, powerful and helpful, a new 
method as well as a new subject-matter was necessary. In 
fact the new subject-matter could only be dealt with by a 
new method. "There are," he says, "and can be only two 
ways for the investigation and discovery of truth. One 
flies from the senses and particulars to the most general 
axioms, and from these principles and their infallible truths 
determines and discovers intermediate axioms. And this is 
the way now in use. The other constructs axioms from the 
senses and particulars, by ascending continually and gradu- 
ally, so as to reach the most general axioms last of all. 
This is the true way, but it is yet untried." With the old 



Realistic Education 475 

method of thought, the entire process is controlled by its 
starting point, which is an axiom, a thing given or deter- 
mined. With the new method, the entire process is controlled 
by the goal to be reached, which is a problem to be solved by 
investigation of particulars. With this method the particulars 
are discoverable by observation, not given by authority ; 
the problem is solved and the principles are determined by 
induction. The practical goal, beyond the scientific problem, 
is reached by the application of the principle through the 
deductive process to the practical problem. The result is 
an invention, — the practical application of knowledge to 
human welfare and power. This is the complete circle of 
Baconian thought involving both methods. Only the deduc- 
tive method is secondary. He does not deny, as do many 
of his followers, its validity for the discovery of truth, 
though he does deny that the truth apt to be reached by 
this method will result in the advancement of human power 
and usefulness. He specifically admits that there is a 
"theological science" as well as a natural science, and that 
the appropriate method of the former is deduction and 
"analogy." In fact. Bacon is not averse to the use of 
" analogy " in various portions of his w^orks. 

Striking advance had been made in Bacon's time and 
most of it had come as a result of accidental discovery, as 
with the compass, gunpowder, the telescope, and the printing 
press. Bacon aimed to change this chance to design ; " for 
though it may happen once or twice that some one by rhance 
hits upon what has hitherto escaped him, while making every 
effort in the inquiry, yet without doubt the contrary will 
happen in the long run. For chance works rarely and 
tardily and without order ; but art constantly, rapidly, and 
in an orderly manner." The new method, the art of dis- 
covery or of invention, not the whole method of human 
thought, was formulated in the Novitm Organuni. Bacon 
stated the logic of the new^; as Aristotle did that of the old 



476 History of Education 

The goal which Bacon held to be of sole value was powet 
over nature : knowledge of nature was the source of all such 
power ; observation, investigation, experimentation. Was the 
sole method of reaching that knowledge. This knowledge 
could not be obtained by the old scholastic method, that of 
definition and of the syllogism ; — methods valid enough for 
the truths which they sought, but truths to Bacon not worth 
the search. Nor did Bacon hold to the nominalistic formula. 
" only that is in the intellect which first is in the senses," or\ 
to its modern restatement as a determinant of all method ; for 
he held that the senses unchecked were particularly unsafe 
guides. He opposed the Aristotelian observation, unchecked 
by test, as vigorously as he did the syllogistic deduction of 
the Schoolmen. The experience of the senses must be 
checked by experiment. Neither the senses, as seen in the 
case of a test of temperature, nor the understanding, as in 
the long-accepted Ptolemaic explanation of the motions of the 
earth and the sun, are safe guides when left to themselves. 
Truth is not reached by the mere accumulation of similar 
instances. Such, he objected, is the character of Aristotelian 
induction and of untrained empirical wisdom. A generaliza- 
tion reached inductively is not valid unless tested by the 
" negative instance " ; for one such instance to the contrary 
will counterbalance the weight of any number of a positive 
character in the establishment of a universal law or principle 
such as are those of nature. 

The difficulties in the way of the employment of the proper 
method and the discovery of knowledge worthy of human 
endeavor. Bacon termed "idols" {Nomim Orgamim, xxxix); 
and classified them as idols of the tribe, those that " have 
their foundation in human nature as such, and in the tribe 
and race of men " ; idols of the den, or the personal bias of 
the individual ; idols of the market place, or those which arise 
from the manners, customs, and usages of men in their social 
intercourse; and idols of the theater, those which depend 



Realistic Education 477 

upon doctrines, dogmas, and traditions. Now invention, con- 
sequently progress, is only arrived at by an interpretation of 
nature without the intervention of any of these idols, conse- 
quently only by the scientifically guarded inductive method. 
Then we come to know things as they really are, not merely 
as popularly represented. This is the aim of science, of 
philosophy, of education. 

But this method has one more scientific relation to educa- 
tional work, made not by Bacon but by his followers. Bacon 
in his method was not thinking of the subjective process, the 
psychological bearing of his great idea, but merely of its 
objective value. He was concerned in showing how the race 
as a whole could come into the possession of that knowledge 
which would be of permanent benefit to itself, and to indicate 
the tests of real knowledge. But in showing how it is that 
we know, he by inference indicated how it is that the indi- 
vidual comes to know and also how the individual should be 
taught. Bacon himself was interested primarily in the sub- 
ject-matter of thought and the possible outcome of it; only 
secondarily in the process of thought. But as method elab- 
orated by Bacon revolutionized the scientific knowledge of 
the race and led to unprecedented progress, so its educational 
application, as made by his followers, especially as introduced 
by Comenius, in time revolutionized school method. The 
specific application of these we are to see later. 

The position of Bacon in the history of education, as in the 
history of human thought, is usually either much exaggerated 
or undervalued. On the one hand he was not the discoverer 
of a new method of thought, for he had predecessors as well 
as co-laborers. He formulated this method, however, show- 
ing that hitherto nature had been rather anticipated by happy 
chance than interpreted by certain method. Nor on the 
other hand was he a man who simply repeated what was a 
time-worn familiarity with all great thinkers. He showed 
that, while all men have experience and guide their conduct 



478 History of Education 

empirically by it, experience is far from explicit invention 
through scientific method. Nor is he to be charged with 
the narrowness of some of his followers of exalting one phase 
of the thought process to the exclusion of all others, or iden- 
tifying the test of knowledge with the source from which all 
knowledge is obtained. Bacon's educational interpreters are 
next to be considered. \ 

Wolfgang Ratkc (Ratichius or Ratich), who lived from I57i\ 
to 1635, first formulated in educational terms those ideas con- 
cerning the new subject-matter of study and the new methods 
of investigation conducive to the advancement of human wel- 
fare that were a part of the new spirit of the early sev^en- 
teenth century, and were first definitely formulated by Bacon. 

The early formulation of the new educational ideas by 
Ratke was presented to several princes and cities, and finally 
to the Diet of the German Empire at Frankfort in 1612. In 
this presentation, which attracted attention as well by its nov- 
elty as by its scope, Ratke claimed : (i) By his new method 
to be able to teach Latin, Greek, and Hebrew tongues more 
thoroughly and in a much shorter time than had hitherto been 
devoted even to the one ; (2) by use of the vernacular as the 
basis for instruction, to give to all children a thorough knowl- 
edge of all the arts and sciences; (3) through the continual use 
of the vernacular and the new methods to bring about the use of 
one language among all the German people in place of the 
multitudinous dialects, and thus to lay the basis in the uniform 
language for uniformity in religion and ultimately uniformity 
in government. This plan, submitted to the examination of 
representatives of two university faculties, was approved in 
both cases. 

Ratke, however, failed of the success in the practical appli- 
cation of his ideas that he attained in their theoretical pVe- 
.sentatlon. Having interested, in succession, the Pfalzgraye 
of Marburg, the Landgrave of Darmstadt, the Duchess of 
Weimar, the municipal authorities of Augsburg and of Frank- 



Kealistic Education 479 

fort, the Princes of Anhalt-Kothen, and of Weimar, and the 
Chancellor of Sweden, he failed in each case to put his ideas 
into successful operation and consequently to retain the sup- 
port of the authorities. In the case of Kothen an extensive 
printing establishment, necessary to carry out his ideas of 
language teaching, and a school of five hundred children 
were furnished him. But, owing more to the character of his 
personality than to any defects in his ideas, he was successful 
with neither institution. 

However, the innovator succeeded in convincing many of 
the truth and the value of his new educational ideas, and 
gathered around him a number of personal followers. From 
these, or from Ratke himself, with an authorship not clearly 
determinable, came an extensive literature of education both 
in the way of text-books and expository treatises. Thus 
the ideas and the inspiration were passed on to a succeeding 
generation — one that produced in Comenius a leader capable 
of making these ideas practically effective, as well as of giving 
them a better formulation. 

The thought underlying all the other principles was that 
everything should be done in its natural order, or in the 
course of nature. " Since nature uses a particular method, 
proper to herself, with which the understanding of man is in 
a certain connection, regard must be had to it also in the art 
of teaching ; for all unnatural and violent or forcible teaching 
and learning is harmful, and weakens nature." While this 
was a direct attempt at a general method, it was not based 
upon psychological principle, but rather upon general and 
often artificial comparisons with the phenomena of nature, or 
upon purely superficial resemblances between the processes 
of the mind and the processes of biological development in 
plant or in animal. 

Others of these principles, important as reformatory influ- 
ences and as permanent truths, can only be suggested : each 
thing should be oft repeated ; everything first in the mother 



480 Histojy of Education 

tongue ; everything without compulsion ; nothing should be 
learned by rote ; mutual conformity in all things (z.^. com- 
parative grammatical study of the languages) ; first the thing 
itself, and afterward the explanation of the thing ; all things 
through experience and investigation or experiment. A 

The last of these contains the essentials of the Baconiata 
reforms ; the next to the last, the essentials of the Pestaloz-\ 
zian reforms ; all of them are foreshadowings of the Comen- 
ian reforms. 

The relation which these principles bear to the entire sense- 
realistic movement justifies a more detailed statement than 
is given here.^ Historically these ideas find their full ex- 
emplification with Comenius rather than with Ratke. The 
latter, however, deserves the credit of their early formulation, 
though he worked rather as a visionary and unpractical revo- 
lutionist than as a successful reformer. 

JoJin Amos Comenius {i$g2~i6'jo). — Whether considered 
from the point of view of theoretical writings or from that of 
direct treatment of schoolroom problems, Comenius is one of 
the most important representatives of the realistic movement 
as well as one of the leading characters in the history of edu- 
cation. Indeed, the most scholarly of his recent biographies 
expressesthe judgment that Comenius is "the broadest-minded, 
the most far-seeing, the most comprehensive, and withal the 
most practical of all the writers who have put pen to paper 
on the subject of education ; the man whose theories have 
been put into practice in every school that is conducted on 
rational principles, who embodies the materialistic tendencies 
of our * modern side ' instructors, while avoiding the narrow- 
ness of their reforming zeal." However, this panegyric con- 
tains an exaggeration in that, while the writings of Comenius 
deserve all of this encomium, his actual influence on his own 

1 A more adequate treatment is given in the translation of Von Ramner, in 
Barnard's German Teachers and Educators, pp. 319-347' This is condensed in 
Quick's Educational Reformers, Ch. IX. 



Realistic Education 481 

and following generations was slight save in one respect, — 
that of a more scientific method of teaching the languages 
as embodied in his text-books. For almost two centuries 
even the very knowledge of these most important educational 
writings ceased to exist; consequently, they had little or no 
direct influence upon later educational reformers. It is true 
that Comenius's ideas " have been put into practice in every 
schoolroom conducted on rationalistic principles," but alto- 
gether aside from any influence exercised by Gomenius ; for a 
knowledge of Comenius and his writings was unknown by 
those who practiced his principles. The greatness of Come- 
nius consists more in his early formulation of those princi- 
ples in concrete terms, than in his direct influence in the 
introduction of such principles into subsequent educational 
practice. After his own generation, it was not until near the 
middle of the nineteenth century that these remarkable edu- 
cational writings of Comenius were again called to public 
attention by the early German historians of education, and 
consequently that due recognition^ was given to the place 
of Comenius in educational reform. His ideas of educa- 
tion were similar to those of Ratke, to whom, however, on 
account of the secrecy and charlatanism of the former, Come- 
nius owed little or nothing, save the suggestion of a " natu- 
ral " method. These ideas, common to both, were worked 
out into a far more extensive scheme and in much greater 
detail by Comenius. They were more consistent, more logi- 
cally presented, and far more modern than were those of 
the earlier innovator, who now arouses, as he did in his own 
generation, as much disgust for his folly and chicanery as 
he does respect and admiration for his pioneer work in edu- 
cational thought. 

Comenius lived a long, industrious life, full of sacrifice for 
his religious brethren in exile, of devotion to his great intel- 
lectual ideals, of trial through persecutions, religious and per- 
sonal, and finally of disappointment in the fruition of his 



482 History of Education 

hopes. Few biographies of educational leaders possess more 
interest ; but reference to several excellent works of recent 
publication must answer as a substitute for one in this con- 
nection. The most immediate interest of Comenius through- 
out his life, first as pastor of their largest congregation, knd 
later as bishop of the entire commission of the Moravian 
brethren, then in '"xile from their native country, was in 
furthering the interests of Christianity, of ^he Protestant 
cause, and especially of his own denomination. In his later 
life the duty of protecting his religious brethren from perse- 
cution and extinction, either by means of his personal influ- 
ence or through distribution of the funds raised by the other 
Protestant countries of Europe, consumed much of his time 
and energy. 

Purpose of Education. — Religion determined for Come- 
nius the aim and general conception of education. Religion 
was to work in and through education both for ultimate ends 
and for the immediate regeneration of society. In these 
views Comenius did not go beyond the other educators, both 
Protestant and Roman CathoHc, of his own and preceding 
generations, unless it was in the more thorough-going belief 
in education as a social as well as an individual regenerating 
force. 

"The ultimate end of man is eternal happiness with God," 
he stated as the primary principle of the Great Didactic. 
The purpose of education was to assist in attaining this great 
end. So far, all the educators of these centuries agreed. But 
it was in the conception of education as a means that they 
differed so widely. Hitherto education assisted toward this 
end by tending to eradicate the natural desires, instincts, and 
emotions, and by furnishing a mental and moral discipline 
tending to these ends. Comenius worked along an entirely 
new line, one that ultimately became the line of modern 
educational endeavor, though with fundamental purposes 
formulated somewhat differently. With Comenius the ulti- 



Realistic Education 483 

mate religious end was to be obtained through moral control 
over one's self, and this in turn was to be secured by knowl- 
edge of one's self and consequently of all thing? Knowl- 
edge, virtue, and piety, in this order of their acquisition, were 
the aims of education. What Sturm and the Reformation 
educators propounded as isolated ends, Comenius unified in 
a logical and psychological relationship, and gave a radically 
different interpretation of the initial element, — knowledge, 
— the one element relating directly to the school. This 
advance, however, was so radical that it affected vitally every 
phase of education, — content, organization, method, and 
text-books. 

Content of Education. — This change respecting the 
subject matter of education can best be presented through 
an explanation of the great purpose and endeavor of the 
entire life of Comenius ; for his religious activity and his 
contributions to the improvement of schoolroom procedure 
were both immediate duties which he did not shirk. But 
both were of subordinate importance when compared with 
his greatest aspiration, namely, the complete reorganization 
of human knowledge, along Baconian lines, with the conse- 
quent expansion of that knowledge and of human power and 
happiness. This pansophic movement of the seventeenth 
century produced many notable attempts at reorganization. 
Of these the Advancement of Learning of Bacon and the En- 
cyclopedias of Henry Alsted and of Campanella were notable 
examples. Probably both Alsted and Campanella had greater 
influence on Comenius than did Bacon. This idea of the 
encyclopedic organization of human knowledge was a com- 
mon one throughout the Middle Ages ; but the execution 
attempted by Comenius and by the pansophic writers of the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was quite different. 
Comenius's aim was to give " an accurate anatomy of the 
universe, dissecting the veins and limbs of all things in such 
a way that there shall be nothing that is not seen, and that 



484 History of Educatioji 

\ ■ 
each part shall appear in its proper place and without con- 
fusion." Previous encyclopedias had been mere collections 
of facts ; his was to be an arrangement of facts arpund 
universal principles, so that in all the arts and sciences, 
starting from the essential point of the universal law as a 
basis, study could proceed from what is best known by slow 
degrees to what is less familiar until all knowledge was 
compassed. So in his Jamia Reruni, as later in his text- 
books, each chapter and each paragraph was to lead up to 
the next, thus embodying his universal principle of method. 
Having already published a Physics (1633), which gave 
such a synopsis of the physical universe, and a Pi-odromtis 
PansophicB, or Preciirsor of PansopJiy (1637), he constructed a 
Jamia Rermn, or Gate of Phenomena, which was to perform 
for the universe of things that which his most famous book, 
\htjanna Linguarnm, had done for languages. The principles 
formulated by Comenius as underlying all of this work are the 
best comment both concerning its advance beyond the intel- 
lectual attitude of the times and also concerning its scientific 
character from the present point of view. 



APHORISMS 

1. Universal knowledge, so far as it can be obtained by 
man, has as its objects God, nature, and art^ 

2. A perfect knowledge of these three is to be sought. 

3. The knowledge of things is perfect when it is full, true, 
and ordered. 

4. Knowledge is true when things are apprehended as they 
exist in reality. 

5. Things are apprehended in their essential nature 
when the manner in which they have come into existence 
is understood. 

6. Each object comes into existence in accordance with its 
" idea," that is to say, in relation to a certain rational con- 
ception through which it can be what it is. 

7. Therefore, all things that come into existence, whether 



Realistic Education 485 

they are the works of God, of nature, or of man, do so in 
accordance with their "ideas." 

8. Art borrows the " ideas " of its productions from nature, 
nature from God, and God from himself. 

9. In fashioning the world, therefore, God produces an 
image of himself, so that every creature stands in a definite 
relation to its creator. 

10. As all things share in the "ideas" of the Divine mind, 
they are also mutually connected and stand in a definite rela- 
tion to one another. 

11. It follows that the rational conceptions of things are 
identical, and only differ in the form of their manifestation, 
existing in God as an archetype, in nature as an ectype, and 
in art as an antitype. 

12. Therefore the basis of producing as of apprehending 
all things is harmony. 

13. The first requisite of harmony is that there should be 
nothing dissonant. 

14. The second is that there should be nothing that is not 
consonant. 

15. The third is that the infinite variety of sounds and 
concords should spring from a few fundamental ones, and 
should come into iDeing by definite and regular processes of 
differentiation. 

16. Therefore, if we know the fundamental conceptions 
and the modes of their differentiation, we shall know all 
things. 

17. Such rational conceptions can be abstracted from 
phenomena by means of a certain method of induction, and 
must be posited as the norms of phenomenal existence. 

18. These norms of truth must be abstracted from those 
objects whose nature is such that they cannot be otherwise, 
and which are at every one's disposal for the purpose of 
making experiments, that is to say, from natural phenomena. 



The knowledge of physical phenomena became, for him, 
the most important object of study, and the main influence 
of his teachings in respect to subject-matter was the introduc- 
tion of such material into the school books actually used, 
together with the exposition of this idea in all his works. 



486 History of Education \ 

On the other hand the extent to which Comenius' grasped 
the modern scientific spirit is evidenced by his use of the 
term "ideas." This he used in true Platonic sense and with 
quite as scholastic a method as any Schoolman of the Middle 
Ages. While in the last of these aphorisms he expressed an 
approval of the inductive method of Bacon, he in reality has 
little sympathy with the experimental method. At least, 
while it might answer for purely natural knowledge, he held 
it to be insufficient for his Pans op hi a, which, dealt with the 
whole universe. The truth was that Comenius was a theo- 
logian and applied in his scientific thinking the methods of a 
theologian. Although he sought to give natural phenomena 
a different treatment, and in his arrangement of them in his 
text-books he did succeed in following the inductive plan, 
yet for the most part he used merely the method of analogy 
instead of experimentation and usually demonstrated a his- 
torical or scientific as well as theological point by quotation 
of Scripture. 

The English friends of Comenius urged him, as the only 
man capable of undertaking such a work, to organize and 
conduct a school similar to " Solomon's House " as described 
in Bacon's Neiv Atlantis. In fact, it was for some such pur- 
pose that Comenius went to England in 1641, and Parliament, 
which had summoned him, would have granted him the sup- 
port and the school had not the Irish rebelHon and later the 
Puritan revolt broken out. The most important work on 
pansophy attempted by Comenius was destroyed in manu- 
script in 1657, so that we have merely his text-books and his 
descriptive writings on this subject. Some of his later works 
on the subject were completed by his assistants after his 
death. His life's ideal was the reorganization of human 
knowledge to serve, in connection with a universal language 
constructed artificially, as a basis for the reorganization of 
human society. This was destined to remain unfulfilled. His 
persistent efforts toward its reahzation resulted only in arous- 



Realistic Education 487 

mg through his works almost a general enthusiasm for the 
propaganda and in introducing new material and to some 
extent a new method into school work. Such work, however, 
continued thereafter, as before, to be chiefly directed toward 
the study of the Latin tongue. In regard to the first, while 
many scoffed, many held that through this effort of Comenius 
a benefit second only to the revelation of God's word was 
about to be conferred upon the human race ; in regard to the 
second, Comenius was known to the two succeeding centuries 
only as the writer of text-books and as the inventor of a new 
method of studying the Latin language. 

Method. — The general thought of a method "according 
to nature," which Comenius advocated and applied through- 
out all his writings, must be distinguished from that particular 
part of it which approximated the Baconian induction and 
formed the basal idea of his text-books. Reference has been 
previously made to Comenius's failure to grasp the full sig- 
nificance of Bacon's formulation of the scientific method and 
of his preference for a natural method founded on analogy, 
which in its interpretation was never fundamental and was 
frequently superficial and fantastic. Comenius argued that 
Bacon's method was competent to distinguish truth from fal- 
sity, but that it applied only to natural phenomena, while pan- 
sophy considered the entire universe. In the introduction 
of his first pansophic work he states that the three channels 
through which knowledge comes to us are the senses, the 
intellect, and divine revelation ; and that " error will cease if 
the balance between them be preserved." In the Great Di- 
dactic Comenius specifically states that the principles of that 
work were formulated a priori and does not even mention 
Bacon in the entire work. Essences and principles find place 
in his philosophy as in that of the fantastic pseudo-scientists 
of the Middle Ages. In his Physics the world is constituted 
from the three principles of matter, spirit, light ; while the 
" qualities " of all things are consistency (salt), oleosity (sul- 



488 History of Education 

phur), and aquosity (mercury). Yet despite these survivals 
of the mediaeval, he stands distinctly for the study of natural 
phenomena and the dependence upon sense perception as the 
source of knowledge concerning nature. 

Notwithstanding this partial grasp of the significance of 
the inductive method when applied to the investigation of 
natural phenomena, when it came to the practical problems 
of instruction in the schoolroom, Comenius did clearly see the 
importance of the new method and first applied it to the 
actual processes of instruction. This is a field where Bacon 
was much more of a stranger than was Comenius in the realm 
of the larger philosophical and scientific problems. In the 
chapter on the Metliod of the Sciences Comenius states nine 
principles of method, which, though they may be deductively 
formulated, yet must have grown out of his own long experi- 
ence as a teacher. These principles are embodied in all his 
texts. Their great historical importance is explained by the 
fact that all more modern formulation of educational pro- 
cedure has but established similar principles on a more scien- 
tific basis. Since it was the concrete embodiment of these 
ideas that led to the remarkable success of the text-books 
and to the beginning of radical reforms in schoolroom work, 
these principles also explain the practical importance of the 
texts. They are stated thus : — 

1. Whatever is to be known must be taught (that is, by 
presenting the object or the idea directly to the child, not 
merely through its form or symbol). 

2. Whatever is taught should be taught as being of prac- 
tical application in everyday life and of some definite use. 

3. Whatever is taught should be taught straightforwardly, 
and not in a complicated manner. 

4. Whatever is taught must be taught with reference to 
its true nature and its origin ; that is to say, through its 
causes. 

5. If anything is to be learned, its general principles 
must first be explained. Its details may then be considered, 
and not till then. 



Realistic Educatio7i 489 

6. All parts of an object (or subject), even the smallest, 
without a single exception, must be learned with reference to 
their order, their position, and their connection with one 
another. 

7. All things must be taught in due succession, and not 
more than one thing should be taught at one time. 

8. We should not leave any subject until it is thoroughly 
understood. 

9. Stress should be laid on the differences which exist 
between things, in order that what knowledge of them is 
acquired may be clear and distinct. 

The application of these principles to the text-books was 
far more successful both from the point of view of language 
study and from that of the study of phenomena of nature 
and of institutions than was that of the general " method of 
nature " in his more abstract pansophic works. 

Text-books. — Comenius had been a student of education 
from his early school days. He began to teach upon leaving 
the university, and later combined the supervision of schools 
with his pastoral work. Even when nearly sixty years old 
(1650) he returned to the care of schools with the acceptance 
of the directorship of the gymnasium at Saros-Patok, Hun- 
gary, where he remained for several years. Consequently, 
his text-books were not the work of a mere theorist but of 
one who combined, as no one before him had ever done, a 
theoretical knowledge of educational problems, derived from 
contemplation and from study, with the practical experience 
of the schoolroom. His objections to the work of the school 
were those noticed by all of the reformers and educational 
writers of his time ; that study was confined to the Latin 
language and literature ; that languages were taught merely 
as words, with no attention to the objects or ideas back of the 
words ; that this study was approached and continued wholly 
through grammatical rules and forms ; that physical force 
was used to compel attention and industry and to punish 
failure to accomplish tasks ; that there was neglect of all 



490 History of Edtuation 

order and rational progress in the gradation of material ; 
that all this resulted in making the schools places of torture 
for children instead of places of interested activity and 
growth. 

Even before he was possessed by his great pansophic 
ideas, Comenius had made it his chief endeavor to reform 
schools both by the formulation of educational principles and 
by the construction of text-books that would obviate the 
above-mentioned evils. In 163 1, the year before the comple- 
tion of the Didactica, Comenius published i\\Q Janiia Lingua- 
rum Reserata, or Gate of Languages Untoctced. This was his 
most famous book and alone would have made him a notable 
character in his own century. Within a short time it was 
published in Latin, Greek, Bohemian, Polish, German, 
Swedish, Belgian, English, French, Spanish, ItaUan, and 
Hungarian of the European languages, and into Arabic, 
Turkish, Russian, and Mongolian of the Asiatic. For many 
generations the schoolboys of three continents thumbed this 
book as their primer to the languages instead of the Donatus 
and Alexander of preceding generations. And very differ- 
ent from these it was, though in some respects not much less 
difficult. The plan of the book was simple and " natural." 
Starting with several thousand of the most common Latin 
words referring to familiar objects, the plan was to arrange 
them into sentences, beginning with the simplest and becom- 
ing progressively more complex, and in such a manner that 
a series of related subjects would be presented, the whole 
presenting a brief encyclopedic survey of knowledge as 
well as affording a vocabulary and a working knowledge of 
simple Latin. 

This text will give a fair conception of the pansophic ideal 
as well as the new tendency in the subject-matter of educa- 
tion. The one hundred different chapter headings included 
such subjects as these, introduced in the order given : Origin 
of the World, the Elements, the Firmament, Fire, Meteors, 



Realistic Education 491 

Water, Earth, Stones, Metals, Trees and Fruit, Herbs and 
Shrubs, Animals (in several chapters) ; Man, His Body, Ex- 
ternal Members, Internal Members, Qualities of the Body ; 
Diseases, Ulcers, and Wounds ; External Senses ; Internal 
Senses ; Mind, The Will, The Affections ; The Mechanic 
Arts (in several chapters); the Home and its Parts ; Marriage; 
the Family ; State and Civic Economy (in several chapters) ; 
Grammar, Rhetoric, Dialectic, and the various branches of 
knowledge ; Ethics ; Games ; Death, Burial, Providence of 
God ; the Angels. Care was taken that every grammatical 
structure should be presented so that a complete grammatical 
knowledge would be developed inductively by the skillful 
teacher. Each page gave in parallel column the Latin sen- 
tence and the vernacular equivalent, and the instruction 
dealt with material that, in its elementary form at least, was 
within the experience of the child. The chief defect of the 
book, one arising from a violation of a principle emphasized 
by Comenius, was the failure to repeat the words, the object 
being to use each word only once. Besides necessitating a 
vast amount of repetition and arousing the dislike of the 
pupil, it had the disadvantage of giving only one meaning to 
the word (though that was always the root signification), and 
only one construction. While the idea had been suggested 
by Ratich, and ineffectually executed independently by a 
Jesuit teacher, William Budasus, this was the first successful 
attempt at the construction of text-books according to modern 
and to psychological principles. And after the improvements 
made by Comenius himself, little further advance was made 
for a century and a half. T\\^ Jamta was the work of three 
years' labor of the author, but in reality it was the product of 
the centuries since the opening of the Renaissance. 

In 1633 Comenius pubHshed the Vestibiiliun {EntJ^ance 
Hall) as an easy introduction to the Gate, which, though far 
simpler than the previous formal grammatical texts which 
were impossible of any mastery save a verbal one, had yet 



492 History of Education 

proved too difficult for beginners. Later, additional texts 
were added. The Atrium was an expansion of the Jamia, 
following the same plan, treating of the same subjects in 
greater detail, and also giving more attention to grammar. 
An accompanying grammar written in Latin was now to be 
used. In the final book of the series, the Palace or the The- 
saurus, a summary of Latin literature, was given. Through 
selection of various portions of Caesar, Sallust, Cicero, etc., 
the substance of this literature, especially as it dealt with 
subjects of interest from the Coraenian point of view, could 
be given with the omission of much of the material objection- 
able to Comenius and certainly detrimental as used in the 
colloquies and school presentations of the times. As Co- 
menius outlined his school plan, about six months should be 
given to the Vestibulinn, one year to the Janua, about the 
same time to the Atritun, and three years to the Palatiiim. 

The most remarkable and most successful of all the Come- 
nian texts was an adaptation of the Janua Lingurtrum, the 
Orbis Pictns, published in 1657. In this text the method of 
dealing with objects instead of with mere symbols or words 
was carried to its logical conclusion in the introduction of the 
objects themselves by means of pictures. But the Oj'bis Pictus 
Seusicalium. — The World of Sensible Tilings Pictured — was 
of greater importance than merely the first illustrated text-book 
for children, for the method of dealing with things and of lead- 
ing by inductive process to a generalized knowledge, was con- 
sistently carried out. While the text was substantially that 
of \ht Janua, each chapter was headed by a rather compli- 
cated picture in which the various objects were numbered 
with reference to specific lines in the text. A page of this 
remarkable text is reproduced as indicating in a concrete 
way, when compared with any of the Latin grammars then 
in ordinary use, all the revolutionary educational ideals of 
Comenius. 

The Organization of Schools. — One other phase of 



( 122 ) 

A School. C. 



"^Schoh^ 




j^ School, I. 
is a Shop, in ivhich 
Young. Wits 

eu'e fajhio ft' ci to Virtue, and 
it is diJiinguijF d into Foxmi. 

Tke M after, 2, 
fjteth in a Chair, 3 , 
'fBe Scholars, 4. 
in Forms, 5. 
Jtt teacksib, •t?:>ej kdrn, 

•Seme things 
^ife ivrit dcwfi before them- 
rwith Chalk on a Table, 6-. 

Sc}mfii 
fit aTabie, ar.diL'rite, 7. 
j^emifu^eth their Faubs, 8. 

SQmedandanJrehear/ethings 
xtmmittedto memory, g. 

Some tftlk together, lO, and 
heha've themfil-vii Vi^tQnlj 



S chela, I . 
eft OScina, in qua 
A'c-z-'elli jlaimi 
formantur ad %-irtutem, 
& dillinguitur in Clajfkt* 

Fraceptor, 2 . 
fedet in Cathedra, -3. 
pifcipidi, 4. 
in SubjcUiis, 5. 
ille docet, hi difcnnt, 

Quasdam 
ptEicribuntur illis 
Cretd in 'Tabella, 6. 

-Quidam fedent 
ad Menfam, Sc fcribunt, 7, 
ipfe corrigit, 8. Men das,, '' 

Quidaxn ftant, & r€citant 
manQata memoris, 9. 

Quidam confabulantur, lOr 
ac gerunt fe petul&ntes, 
& neffligente« j 

thtj( 



Realistic Education 493 

these educational ideas deserves brief mention, that is, the 
organization of schools. In this respect, as well as in those 
previously noticed, Comenius was quite two centuries ahead 
of his contemporaries. In his Didactica Magna, and more 
especially in the Outline of the Pansophic School for the 
Patak gymnasium, this subject is treated. As in the case of 
the text-books, so also in this latter writing, the gymnasium or 
secondary school alone is dealt with. But these indicate in 
detail the character of the work that would be included in 
other phases of the educational system. The work of the 
pansophic school, divided into seven classes, is indicated in 
detail. Over the door of each class is placed an inscription ; 
over that of the first class, the Vestilmlar, " Let no one enter 
who cannot read " ; over the second, the Janual, " Let no 
one enter who is ignorant of mathematics " ; over the Atrial, 
" Let no one enter who cannot speak " ; over the Philosophi- 
cal, " Let no one ignorant of history enter here " ; over the 
Logical, " Let no one enter who is ignorant of natural phi- 
losophy " ; over the Political, " Let no one enter who cannot 
reason"; over the Theological, "Let no one enter who is 
irreligious." 

Two grades of school were to precede the gymnasium : 
first, the infant school ; second, the vernacular school. Pre- 
vious to the writing of the Didactica, Comenius had written 
The School of the Mother' s Knee, in which there is a remark- 
able foreshadowing of the kindergarten. The purpose of the 
book was to indicate to mothers how they could care for the 
early education of their own children. The pansophic ideals 
control even here, for the infant is to be instructed in history, 
geography, even metaphysics, as well as to be cared for 
physically and to be trained in games, sports, and manners. 
But by these high-sounding names Comenius meant a very 
feasible and desirable thing; namely, that the child's simple 
experience as to locality, time, and casual relationship of 
many events could be and should be made quite definite even 



494 History of Education 

before the sixth year, and independent of formal instruction 
by means of books. The Vernacular School should comprise 
the period from the sixth to the twelfth years, and was rather 
a substitute for than a preliminary to the gymnasium, de- 
signed for those who could not obtain the higher education. 
As to method and subject-matter this school resembled the 
Latin School. The series of texts prepared for it by Come- 
nius were in the Czech language and consequently never 
received wide circulation, even if they were ever printed. 
None at least have survived. Above the secondary school 
was to come the University, where every subject could be 
pursued as in the gymnasium. Above the University, re- 
versing the use of terms as we now employ them, was the 
College of Light, an institution for scientific investigation of 
every subject, similar to the Solomon's House of the New 
Atlantis. 

The Great Didactic. — As through all of the activities 
of this great leader ran the one dominant motive found in the 
pansophic ideal of the regeneration of society through the 
reorganization of knowledge, so throughout all his educational 
work ran the fundamental conception of education early 
worked out. Though Comenius was the first even approxi- 
mately to apply in a formal way the inductive method to edu- 
cation, the foundation of his educational views and the basis of 
all his educational activities were very early determined and 
his later work was simply that of amplification. For though 
he has more than a hundred treatises and text-books to his 
credit, yet they are all summed up in his one great theoreti- 
cal treatise which was one of his earliest educational writings. 
The Didactic Magna was completed by 1632, though not pub- 
lished in a Latin translation until 1657, and not printed in 
the language in which it was written until the middle of the 
nineteenth century. This work is certainly one of the most 
remarkable educational treatises ever composed. Though 
essays or books on didactics were among the most numerous 



Realistic Education 495 

of the publications of those times, the Great Didactic is a 
remarkable variant from the ordinary type. Both its ideas, 
or principles, and its arrangement are strikingly modern. On 
the contrary, the form in which the ideas are expressed, as 
well as the particular interpretations of the method used, are 
thoroughly colored by the theological character of the age 
and by the professional training of the author. So sane and 
far-seeing are the precepts of this work that it may even yet 
be read with greater immediate profit to the teacher, suffi- 
ciently intelligent to avoid many minor errors, than the 
majority of contemporary educational writings. Some of the 
main principles of the Didactic have been mentioned, but so 
sohd a foundation is laid for the educational development of 
the succeeding centuries, — as that foundation in turn rests 
upon the bed rock of the Renaissance and Reformation move- 
ment, — that it is quite worth while, in conclusion, to give the 
entire table of contents. 

SUBJECTS OF THE CHAPTERS 

' I. Man is the highest, the most absolute, and the most 
excellent of things created. 

II. The ultimate end of man is beyond this life. 

III. This life is but a preparation for eternity. 

IV. There are three stages in the preparation for eternity : 
to know one's self (and with one's self all things) ; to rule 
one's self ; and to direct one's self to God. 

V. The seeds of these three (learning, virtue, religion) are 
naturally implanted in us. 

VI. If a man is to be produced, it is necessary that he be 
formed by education. 

VII. A man can most easily be formed in early youth, and 
cannot be formed properly except at this age. 

VIII. The young must be educated in common, and for 
this schools are necessary. 

IX. All the young of both sexes should be sent to school. 

X. The instruction given in schools should be universal. 

XI. Hitherto there have been no perfect schools. 



.^96 History of Education 

XI I. It is possible to reform schools, 

XIII. The basis of school reform must be exact order in 
all things. 

XIV. The exact order of instruction must be borrowed 
from nature. 

XV. The basis of the prolongation of life. 

> XVI. The universal requirements of teaching and of learn- 
ing ; that is to say, a method of teaching and of learning with 
such certainty that the desired result must of necessity follow. 

XVII. The principles of facility in teaching and in 
learning. 

XVIII. The principles of thoroughness in teaching and in 
learfiing. 

XIX. The principles of conciseness and rapidity in 
teaching. 

XX. The method of the sciences, specifically. 

XXI. The method of the arts. ^ 

XXII. The method of languages. 

XXIII. The method of morals. 

XXIV. The method of instilling piety. 

XXV. If we wish to reform schools in accordance with 
the l^-ws of true Christianity, we must remove from them 
books written by pagans, or, at any rate, must use them 
with more caution than hitherto. 

XXVI. Of school disciphne. 

XXVII. Of the fourfold division of schools, based on age 
and acquirements. 

XXVIII. Sketch of the Mother-School. 

XXIX. Sketch of the Vernacular School. 

XXX. Sketch of the Latin School. 

XXXI. Of the University, of traveling students, of the 
College of Light. 

XXXII. Of the universal and perfect order of instruction. 

XXXIII. Of the things requisite before this universal 
method can be put into practice. 

Effects of Sense-realism on Schools. — At any time, the 
response made to educational theory by the concrete practices 
of the school is necessarily slow and indirect. For those 
who formulate the advanced theory are seldom those who 
control the schools ; the practical administrator is ever 



Realistic Education 497 

loath to be considered a theorist, that is, one recognizing a 
new theory instead of practicing an old one ; and the teacher 
is ever loath to add new burdens or form new habits, in 
learning to do old things in a new way. 

On the other hand, Ratke, Comenius, even Bacon, were 
but exponents of a thought movement that was affecting 
many ; they were leaders in the formulation of the new 
thought rather than originators of it. As with these men, 
so with the other leaders of advanced thought of the 
seventeenth century, — their work was performed outside 
of the university, which had httle sympathy with the new 
thought. Neither Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, or Leibnitz of 
the philosophers, nor Harvey and Boyle of the scientists, nor 
Bacon as representative of both philosophy and science, was 
in close contact with the universities. So it was in the sec- 
ondary schools and in independent institutions that the new 
ideas were realized. In 16 19 the first academy of natural 
science was founded at Rostock. Under Frederick the 
Great (r. 1740-1786) the Berlin Academy became a powerful 
exponent of the new thought. 

After the close of the Thirty Years' War (1648), the old 
academies for the nobles {Ritterakademien, see p. 389) again 
became influential, and now as exponents of the new ideas, 
rationalistic and practical, as opposed to the scholastic for- 
malism of university and gymnasium. This, however, was a 
foreign culture which did not affect at all the masses of the 
people. Here realism found its first exposition, based more 
upon the social-realism of Montaigne and the popular ideals 
of the French aristocracy, then dominant throughout Europe, 
than upon the scientific realism of Bacon and Comenius. 

From the middle of the seventeenth century, the text-books 
of Comenius had come into common use in the gymnasia of 
the German cities, but rather as aids to Latin study than for 
their scientific content. The first schools to embody the 
realism of Comenius, emphasizing more the religious than 
2 K 



49B History of Education 

the scientific side, were those of the pietistic movement as it. 
centered around Hermann Francke (1663-1727) and Spener 
(163 5- 1 700). Pietism was a reaction quite as much against 
the profligacy and extravagance of rationalism as typified in 
the ritierakademien as against the formalism of the classical 
schools. But the rationalistic and the pietistic school were 
at one in their opposition to the dominant classicism and 
formalism, and in their advocacy of the realistic studies and 
the use of the vernacular. Beginning in 1692 Francke es- 
tabhshed, at Halle, a group of educational and charitable 
institutions of very wide scope and of extended influence. 
With a constituency drawn wholly from the middle and lower 
class people, — a large orphan asylum was a part of the insti- 
tution, — Francke aimed to combine a practical preparation 
for life and a rehgious influence with a school training neces- 
sarily strong in the realistic studies. His achievement was 
a demonstration of Comenian ideals ; a combination of Chris- 
tianity and practical training, with formal school work. A 
seminary for the training of teachers, instituted as a part of 
his general foundations, assisted materially in the spread of 
his ideas in many schools, especially those of Prussia, both 
of old and new foundations. 

The Real Schools {Real-scJuden) of Germany, which em- 
body most completely the realistic educational movement, date 
from 1747, in which year Hecker, a pupil of Francke, estab- 
lished the cekonomisch-mathematische Real-schule at Berlin. 
The curriculum of this school included the German, French, 
and Latin languages, writing, drawing, history, geography, 
geometry, arithmetic, mechanics, architecture, rehgion, and 
ethics. Within a comparatively short time the leading com- 
mercial cities of the German countries established similar 
schools. During the later part of the century, under the 
influence of the " naturalistic " movement (Chapter X), these 
schools were incorporated as a component part of the Ger- 
man school system. 



Realistic Education 499 

The Academies in England. — In England the introduction 
of the "real studies" was bound up with the history of the 
" academies " as those institutions were developed by the non- 
conforming churches. The beginning of this movement is 
connected with the humanistic realism of Milton, who stylec 
the institution described in his Tractate an academy. With 
the downfall of the Puritan protectorate and the restoration 
of the Stuart monarchy, the dissenting clergymen, some two 
thousand in all, were expelled from their parishes (1662), and 
shortly afterward the dissenters were excluded from the pub- 
lic schools and the universities. This gave both a teaching 
staff and a constituency to a new type of educational institu- 
tions, which for a time had but an indefinite organization and 
unsubstantial existence, but which, after the toleration act of 
1689, became a definite part of the English educational scheme. 
Though these, as well as all other educational institutions of 
England, had only an ecclesiastical and private support, they 
continued to perform an ever widening function in the educa- 
tional life of the people, until, with the disappearance of reli- 
gious disabilities, they became, as a type, indistinguishable in 
the multiplicity of secondary schools during the early nine- 
teenth century. 

As was to be expected, the founders of these institutions of 
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had little sympathy 
with the narrow and restricted education that produced their 
illiberal persecutors ; hence, the new institutions provided for 
a much broader training through a curriculum that included 
many of the new " real " studies. Preparation for the minis- 
try was yet a prominent, though by no means the exclusive, 
purpose of these schools, hence the classical languages formed 
a prominent part if not the basal part of the course of study. 
To these were added a variety of subjects, varying with the 
institution, including French, Italian, Hebrew, logic, rhetoric, 
ethics, metaphysics, history, economics, oratory, theology, nat- 
ural philosophy, anatomy, geography, geometry, algebra, sur- 



500 History of Education 

veying, trigonometry, conic sections, celestial mechanics, and 
even shorthand. One subject that was given especial empha- 
sis in all of these institutions was that of Enghsh, and the 
instruction in all of the subjects came to be given in the ver- 
nacular. Of one academy it is specified that in addition to 
the usual curriculum "all the classes were exercised at times 
in land surveying, dialling, making almanacks, and dissecting 
animals." No more striking evidences of the realistic tendency 
could be found in the theoretical discussions of the subject. 

Such institutions took the place of both secondary schools 
and universities for the nonconformists, and offered a more 
direct preparation for the practical occupations of life than did 
the classical public schools. For the Church, the university, 
and the State, however, the old type of institutions yet served 
exclusively. The influence of the writings of John Locke on 
education ( Chapter IX) served to further the interest in the new 
educational tendency, and his Thoughts became almost a hand- 
book or a charter for the academies. 

In America. — With the growth of the minor dissenting 
bodies in the American colonies a similar, though until the 
middle of the eighteenth century a more rudimentary, institu- 
tion grew up. These bodies were especially strong in the 
middle colonies, and there these new institutions found a home. 
Even in New England the Latin grammar schools began to 
make provision, from no theoretical educational reasons, for 
the practical economic interests of the people. In most of 
the seaport towns of all the colonies, branches of practical 
mathematics, especially surveying and navigation, were intro- 
duced even in the late seventeenth, certainly by the middle of 
the eighteenth century. Not until this later period, however, 
was a typical " real-school " introduced and the term " acad- 
emy " used. This was the " Academy and Charitable School 
of Pennsylvania," later the University of Pennsylvania, which 
was suggested by Benjamin Franklin in 1743 and opened in 
1 75 1. Three schools were included in this academy, a Latins 



Realistic Education 501 

an English, and a mathematical. Franklin in his writings, 
which exalted practical economics into a philosophy of life 
for a new people, did much to further a scheme of education 
which had much in common with the educational theories of 
the sense-realists. While the philosophical basis might have 
been quite different, in its concrete embodiment it was al- 
most identical with the "real-school" of Germany, After 
the Revolutionary War, the academies became the typical 
educational institutions of the American states. By this time 
several other momentous forces, besides the realistic educa- 
tional philosophy, were at work to produce revolutionary 
changes in education. 

The Universities responded much less quickly than the 
secondary institutions to the new educational ideas. The 
theological-classical scholasticism controlled the German 
universities throughout the seventeenth century ; but in 
1694 the University of Halle was founded chiefly as a pro- 
test against the narrowness of the old. Halle is considered 
the first modern university, for here first were the " real " 
subjects taught, with the new methods and in the modern 
tongue. Francke, mentioned in connection with the real- 
schools, and Thomasius, who had been expelled from Leipzig 
because of their too liberal ideas, made Halle the center of 
the new influence. The custom of using German in the uni- 
versity lecture room, introduced by Thomasius, who also pub- 
lished the first German magazine, soon spread, as did also the 
university teaching of the natural sciences and a more liberal 
philosophy. In fact, the German university ideal of " freedom 
of teaching and freedom of study" first found its embodiment 
in the foundation of Halle. In 1737 the University of Got- 
tingen became a second center of these same influences. By 
the close of the century the conquest of all the universities, 
at least of Protestant Germany, was accomplished. 

The conservative English universities responded much less 
quickly and much less thoroughly to the new influences. 



502 History of Educatio7i 

During the professorship of Isaac Newton (1669- 1702) and 
the headmastership of Richard Bentley (i 740-1 742), Cam- 
bridge was given the strong mathematical bent which it has 
ever retained, and the mathematical and physical sciences 
were fostered. During the eighteenth century a number of 
regius professorships in history and the sciences were founded 
by the Georges. But there was no such renovation of the 
university by the new spirit, as in Germany, until late in the 
nineteenth century. 

REFERENCES 

Hiiinaiiistic Realism. 

Barnard, English Pedagogy, Ser. I, pp. 145-190. 

Barnard, Rabelais and his Educational Ideal, in Atnerican Journal of Edu- 
cation, XIV, p. 147. 

Besant, Rabelais. (In Foreign Classics for English Readers.) 

Brooks, Phillips, Essays and Addresses : Milton as an Educator. 

Browning, Oscar, History of Educational Theories, Chs. V, VI. (New 
York, 1888.) 

Browning, Milton'' s Tractate on Edjication. (Cambridge, 1883.) 

Compayr^, History of Pedagogy, Ch. V. 

Morris, MiltoiCs Tractate on Education. (London, 1895.) 

Munroe, The Educational Ideal, Ch. II. (Boston, 1895.) 

Mo7itaigne. 
Barnard, Montaigiie on Learning and Education, in American Journal 

of Education, XIV, p. 461. 
Browning, History of Educatio>ial Theories, p. 91. 
Compayre, History of Pedagogy, p. 100. 
Hazlitt, The M^orks of Montaigne, Introduction. 
Laurie, Teachers'' Guild Addresses. (London, 1892.) Montaigne. 
Montaigne. Essays, Bk. I, Chs. XXIV, XXV; Bk. II, Ch. VIII. 
Munroe, The Educational Ideal, Ch. V. 
Owen, Skeptics of the French Renaissance. 

Rector, Montaigne on Education of Children. (New York, 1899.) 
Owen, Skeptics of the French Renaissance. (London, 1893.) 
Quick, Educational Reformers, Ch. VI. 

Sense-Realism . 
Browning, Educational Theories. Ch. IV. 
Barnard, Ettglish Pedagogy, Second Series, pp. 177-324. 



Realistic Edtication 503 

Barnard, Bacon, American Journal of Education, Vol. V, p. 663. 

Barnard, Peter Ramus, American J ournal of Education, Vol. XXX, p. 451. 

Barnard, German Teachers and Educators, pp. 273-418. 

Brown, The Making of our Middle Schools. (New York, 1903.) 

Compayre, History of Pedagogy, Ch. VI. 

Hanus, Educational Aims, Ch. VIII. (New York, 1899.) 

Keatinge, The Great Didactic of Cojuenius. (London, 1896.) 

Laurie, yi?/^;/ Amos Comcfiitis. (Cambridge, 1887.) 

Laurie, Development of Educational Opinion, Chs. X, XL 

Mark, Edticational Theories in Ettglattd, Chs. Ill, V. (London. iSqq ) 

Monroe, Comenius and the Beginnings of Educational Reform. (New 

York, 1900.) 
Monroe, Comenius'' School of Infancy . (Boston, 1896.) 
Munroe, The Educational Ideal, Ch. IV. 
Quick, Educational Reformers, Chs. VIII, IX, X. 
Watson, Richard Mulcaster and his Elementarie. (New York, 1899.) 



TOPICAL QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER INVESTIGATION 

1. What were the views of Erasmus concerning the selection, method 
of study, and the use or purpose of literary material for the schoolroom? 

2. Write an analysis of Milton's Tractate on Edtication. To what 
extent and in what respects does it represent a departure from the domi- 
nant education of the schools ? What criticism can you offer on Milton's 
scheme? 

3. To what extent does Montaigne in his writings represent the ideals 
of the narrow humanists? 

4. To what extent does the idea of education through contact with the 
world and through travel find justification or condemnation in the literature 
on education? 

5. What descriptions or discussions of this same topic can you find in 
literature in general? 

6. What are Montaigne's arguments against the narrow humanistic 
education dominant in his times? 

7. Compare the conception of education held by Montaigne with that 
held by Ascham. 

8. In what respects does Montaigne's view of education differ from 
that of Milton ? Of Rabelais ? Of Erasmus ? Of Comenius ? Of Locke ? 
Of Rousseau? 

9. To what extent are Montaigne's views of education borrowed from 
those held by Greeks or Romans? 



504 History of Education 

10. Give an account of the educational views and works of Peter Ramus. 
Of Ludovico Vives. Of Sir William Petty. Of Daniel Defoe. Of Samuel 
Hartlib. Of Charles Hoole. 

11. Make a study of the " pansophic" ideas of the seventeenth century. 

12. In what respects do the views of Richard Mulcaster coincide with 
those of the realists ? Give an account of the educational work and writ- 
ings of Mulcaster. 

13. What were the forces opposing and what those favoring the intro- 
duction of the vernacular into educational work in any one country ? 

14. What were the arguments for the educational use of the vernacular 
advanced by its early advocates, such as Mulcaster, Ratich, the Port Roy- 
alists, etc. ? 

15. What were the views concerning learning and education expressed 
by Bacon in his Advancement of Learning? 

16. What exposition of the new method does Bacon give in the Novum 
Organism f 

17. To what extent was the inductive method used by Bacon's contem- 
poraries in their investigations ? 

18. To what extent does the development of any one or all of the 
natural sciences during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries throw light 
upon the educational development ? 

19. What were the merits and defects of the educational work of Ratich ? 

20. In what respects were his views, as expressed in his writings, novel 
and reformatory ? 

21. In what respects are the educational activities of Comenius represen- 
tative of the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the seventeenth-century 
scientific tendencies in thought ? 

22. What new principles are embodied in the text-books of Comenius ? 

23. How influential were these new text-books? 

24. To what extent does Comenius yet hold to the mediaeval educa- 
tional ideas of the nature of the various subjects of the curriculum, the 
necessity of scholastic discipline, etc. ? 

25. To what extent does Comenius hold views concerning education 
that are now accepted ? 

26. Trace the development of the realistic education in the real-schools 
of Germany. In the academies of England. In the academies of the 
United States. 

27. Give an account of Francke's educational work at Halle. 

28. Trace the development of the realistic or scientific spirit in the 
universities of any country. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE DISCIPLINARY CONCEPTION OF EDUCATION. 
JOHN LOCKE 

FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO THE FORMATION OF 
THE DISCIPLINARY CONCEPTION. — With the Reforma- 
tion, Latin ceased to be the language of religion and of the 
clergy ; similarly, during the later seventeenth century, it 
ceased to be the exclusive language of the universities, of 
the schools, and of learning ; even before this time it had 
been superseded by French as the language of diplomacy 
and of the courts. When, with the development of the ver- 
nacular literatures, it ceased to be the language of culture 
and of the humanities as well, Latin could no longer domi- 
nate the schools upon the same basis and for the same reasons 
that it had done hitherto. But by the seventeenth century the 
linguistic and literary curriculum had become traditional, with 
the authority of the learning of two centuries behind it and 
with a scholastic procedure which in details of method and of 
curriculum, in the entire technique of the schoolroom, had 
never been equaled by any previous system of educational 
practice. In fact, unless we consider as a distinct type the 
further improvement this linguistic and literary schooHng 
received through two centuries of additional practice, it has 
had no equal since. Now perfection in the technique of 
schoolroom procedure, in details of subject-matter, organiza- 
tion, and method, is no justification for a system of educational 
practice ; yet, since it has behind it to give it stability, both the 
force of tradition and the most tenacious of any professional 

50s 



5o6 History of Education 

loyalty and conservatism, it is the strongest influence work- , 
ing for such a system. 

Consequently, since this narrow humanistic education no 
longer had any direct connection with the practical demands 
of the times and no longer offered the sole approach to a 
knowledge of human achievement and thought, a new theory 
must be found to justify its perpetuation. This new theory 
was, in a word, that the important thing in education was not 
the thing learned, but the process of learning. In respect to 
this principle, the new education was but a revival of the 
formalism of mediaeval scholasticism. To the elaboration of 
this disciplinary conception of education a number of factors 
contributed. These general social changes just mentioned, 
which brought about the opportunity and need for this new 
theory, were in themselves the most important of these fac- 
tors. These changes not only occasioned the formation of 
the theory of the old and the dominant; they also introduced 
the new practice of the realistic education which now began 
to appropriate the argument advanced, at an earlier age, for 
the broad humanistic education. Realism emphasized even 
more strongly than had the early Renaissance thought with 
reference to the old scholasticism, that it was the thing learned, 
not the process of learning that was important. The narrow 
humanistic education now adopted, in addition to the argu- 
ments held as peculiar merits of its own, all those formerly 
used for the scholastic education. 

In the second place, the disciplinary education, as it repre- 
sented the continuation of the narrow humanistic education, 
yet retained the almost undivided support of those who viewed 
education from the religious standpoint. As is evidenced in 
the attitude of the Church toward most of the leaders of the 
reahstic tendency, notably Descartes and Bacon, that move- 
ment was looked upon as irrehgious and atheistic. In his 
personal views Comenius was rather an exception ; though 
in the attacks and persecutions which he suffered from his 



Disciplinary Conception of Education 507 

co-religionists, on account of his supposed heretical tendencies, 
he was entirely typical. This opposition became one phase 
of the conflict between theology and science. But from a yet 
more general reason, and that a pedagogical one, the religious 
view supported the disciplinary conception. In fact, since 
it looked upon education as one process of eradicating the 
essentially evil character of human nature, the religious view 
of education on its pedagogical side was the disciplinary one. 
On the moral side, then, religious thought furnished the 
theory of the disciplinary education. 

On the psychological side, so far as that entered into the 
educational thought of the times, the disciplinary conception 
received the support of the current traditional psychology. 
This was the old Aristotelian faculty psychology, with its 
mediaeval implications, which demanded a training of the 
various faculties of the mind by appropriate disciplines for- 
mulated into schoolroom procedures. No subject afforded 
better facilities for this than the formal side of language study, 
unless it was the mathematical branches. To these, conse- 
quently, greater importance was now attached than formerly. 
Even the new psychology of Bacon and Locke, so far as 
their theory of knowledge formulated a psychology, contrib- 
uted to the prevailing disciplinary view. At least Locke 
made it so contribute as will be seen subsequently. But it 
must ever be borne in mind that Locke's educational theories 
are not always consistent with his psychological theories. 
While the doctrine of innate ideas was rejected by these men 
in favor of experience, training in sense perception did not 
supersede nor make unnecessary the training of the higher 
facitlties. In either case, so far as the popular view went, 
the training was to be a " discipline." 

MEANING OF EDUCATION AS A DISCIPLINE. — As 

previously stated, the essence of the disciplinary conception 
of education can be given in a few words ; namely, that it is 



5o8 History of Education 

the process of learning rather than the thing learned that is 
the important and determining thing in education. John 
Locke, who gives probably the best presentation of this con- 
ception, sums up his views in one place as follows : — 

" The great work of a governor is to fashion the carriage 
and to form the mind, to settle in his pupil good habits and 
the principles of virtue and wisdom, to give him little by 
little a view of mankind and work him into a love and imita- 
tion of what is excellent and praiseworthy ; and in the prose- 
cution of it to give him vigor, activity, and industry. The 
studies which he sets him upon are but, as it were, the exer- 
cise of his faculties and employment of his time ; to keep 
him from sauntering and idleness ; to teach him application 
and accustom him to take pains and to give him some little 
taste of what his own industry must perfect." ^ 

As indicated by the analysis of the elements that first pro- 
duced this view, the disciplinary conception takes a great 
variety of forms. But substantially they unite on the one 
point, namely, that a particular activity or experience, espe- 
cially of an intellectual character, if well selected, produces 
a power or ability out of all proportion to the expenditure of 
energy therein ; a power that will be serviceable in most dis- 
similar experiences or activities, that will be available in 
every situation, that will be applicable to the solution of 
problems presented by any subject, however remote in kind 
from the one furnishing the occasion for the original disciplin- 
ary experience. More specifically the theory posited that one 
or two subjects, thoroughly taught and mastered, were of much 
greater educational value than five or six subjects demanding 
the same amount of time and energy. The disciplinarians 
believed that those subjects which, through the generality of 
their principles, such as mathematics and logic, or through 
the formal nature of their content and arrangement, such as 
the classical languages, furnished a formal training for the 

^ Thoughts on Educaiiofi, Par. 94, Quick edition, pp. 75-76. 



Disciplinary Conception of Education 509 

various "faculties" of the mind, were of supreme importance 
educationally. This value belonged to such subjects irrespec- 
tive of their relation to life or of their final mastery or use 
by the pupil. It was further implied, so far as the period of 
complete dominance of this theory was concerned, that these 
subjects were peculiarly adapted to the development of the 
memory and the reason, and that these " powers of the mind " 
were preeminently the ones demanded for success in any 
walk of life. The special demands which the various callings 
or needs of life make upon education were to receive no 
special consideration ; for all were to be met by the simple 
turning of the ability generated by the formal training of the 
school into the desired channel. Nor were the special apti- 
tudes or inaptitudes of the pupils given any consideration ; 
for since these studies with their appropriate discipline fur- 
nished the best possible preparation for every obligation that 
life made upon education, those pupils that were unable to 
meet the demands of such a training were ipso facto incapable 
of fulfilling any of these higher offices or functions in life or 
of meeting the requirements of any of its greater opportu- 
nities. 

The nature as well as the force of this conception of edu- 
cation is best seen by placing it in opposition to an equally 
one-sided view of education, but one that, on the contrary, 
places the whole emphasis on the thing learned rather than 
upon the process, of learning. A writer, Fouillee,^ much more 
modern than those who stand for this conception in the ear- 
lier period of its ascendency, in his argument for the disci- 
plinary education of the classics as opposed to the content or 
practical education of the modern sciences, contrasts these 
views as follows : — 

" Huxley proposes to make the natural and physical sci- 
ences the basis of education. Spencer, in his turn, by a kind 

^ Education from the National Sta^tdpoint, pp. 36, 37, 



5IO History of Education 

of idolatry of science which is widespread in these days, 
makes of positive science almost exclusively the subject for 
youth, under the pretext that, in this life, geometry is neces- 
sary for the construction of bridges and railways, and that in 
every definite trade, even in poetry, we must have knowledge. 
How conclusive is poetry as an instance! Is a Virgil or a 
Racine made by learning rules of versification ? The scien- 
tific man is not made by teaching him science, for true science, 
like poetry, is invention. We can learn to build a railway by 
rule of thumb, but those who invented railways did so only 
by the force of the intellectual power they had acquired, and 
not by the force of the mere knowledge they had received ; it 
is therefore intellectual force that we must aim at develop- 
ing. And then returns the question : Is the best means of 
strengthening and developing the intellect of our youth, to 
load the memory with the results of modern science, or is it 
to teach them to reason, to imagine, to combine, to divine, to 
know beforehand what ought to be true from an innate sense 
of order and harmony, of the simple and the fruitful, — a 
sense near akin to that of the beautiful .-' And besides, are 
youths educated to be engineers or poets .'' Education is not 
an apprenticeship to a trade, it is the culture of moral and 
intellectual forces in the individual and in the race." 

On the other hand, Huxley answers this argument by 
showing in somewhat satirical language that the sciences 
could be so arranged and so taught as to give a disciplinary 
training similar to that given in his times in the public 
schools. Then he says : — 

" It is wonderful how close a parallel to classical training 
could be made out of that palaeontology to which I refer. 
In the first place I could get up an osteologicai primer so 
arid, so pedantic in its terminology, so altogether distasteful 
to the youthful mind, as to beat the recent famous production 
of the headmasters out of the field in all these excellencies. 
Next, I could exercise my boys upon easy fossils, and bring 
out all their powers of memory and all their ingenuity in the 
application of my osteo-grammatical rules to the interpreta- 
tion, or construing, of those fragments. To those who had 
reached the higher classes, I might supply odd bones to be 



Disciplinary Conception of Education 5 1 1 

built up into animals, giving great honor and reward to him 
who succeeded in fabricating monsters most entirely in accord- 
ance with the rules. That would answer to verse making and 
essay writing in the dead language. To be sure, if a great 
comparative anatomist were to look at these fabrications he 
might shake his head, or laugh. But what then } Would 
such a catastrophe destroy the parallel } What, think you, 
would Cicero, or Horace, say to the production of the best 
sixth form going .'' And would not Terence stop his ears and 
run out if he could be present at an English performance of 
his own plays '^ Would Hamlet, in the mouths of a set of 
French actors, who should insist on pronouncing English 
after the fashion of their own tongue, be more hideously 
ridiculous .'' " 



So persistent is this narrow disciplinary view that even 
when the old rational psychology, based upon introspective 
analysis, begins to give way or to be supplemented by a con- 
ception of the mind based upon a study of its development, 
education is yet viewed as a process of developing the 
"powers" or "faculties" of the mind through appropriate 
discipline. This is seen in the case of Pestalozzi, who first 
represents this view in practical educational work (p. 614). 
A few sentences on the appropriate subject-matter of educa- 
tion from a recent writer, Tarver, who discusses the entire 
question of English education from this point of view, are 
illustrative. " My claim for Latin, as an Enghshman and a 
foster parent [teacher], is simply that it would be impossible 
to devise for Enghsh boys a better teaching instrument. . . . 
The acquisition of a language is educationally of no impor- 
tance ; what is important is the process of acquiring it. . . . 
The one great merit of Latin as a teaching instrument is its 
tremendous difficulty." 

This is not only the view of the schoolmaster, but it has 
been held generally by all educated people. Professor Home 
quotes from Sir William Hamilton a sentence which is typical 
of the somewhat milder view of the public. " The great 



512 History of Education 

problem in education," said Hamilton, "is how to induce the 
pupil to go through with a course of exertion, in its results good 
and even agreeable, but immediately and in itself irksome." 

While this conception of education still prevails very 
generally and is apt to continue, yet we are now chiefly con- 
cerned in its historical presentation, especially by the great 
English philosopher. 

JOHN LOCKE AS A REPRESENTATIVE OF THE DIS- 
CIPLINARY EDUCATION.— It would be a mistake to sup- 
pose, from the heading of this chapter, that the educational 
ideas of John Locke (i 632-1 704) can be completely summed 
up under this conception. Locke held the idea that educa- 
tion was a discipline, and his view strongly reenforced the 
prevalent one. But the " discipHne " of the philosopher was 
a much broader one than the discipline of the schoolmasters. 
Locke's one great passion in life, the thought emphasized in 
his philosophical writings as the aim of intellectual endeavor, 
was the4ev^ of truth. The guide to the attainment of truth 
and to every activity in life was reason ; but the mind was 
capable of attaining to truth and of formulating it only when 
educated to this end. This education consisted in a rigid 
discipline. In his Essay concerning Human Understanding 
Locke formulated the Baconian philosophy or more especially 
the theory of knowledge, that of empiricism, that has re- 
mained the dominant philosophy of the English thought- 
world to the present time ; this theory was that all knowledge 
comes from the perception of the senses and the "percep- 
tion of the intellect," that is, from experience. The idea 
that all knowledge comes primarily through the senses and 
is built up according to the inductive process, as formulated 
by Bacon, was elaborated by Locke rather into a test for dis- 
tinguishing truth from falsity than into a theory explaining 
the origin of all knowledge. With his followers of the 
eighteenth century it became both. 



Disciplinary Conception of Education 513 

The rational psychology, or explanation of the manner in 
which the mind works, becomes probably incidentally with 
Locke, certainly directly with his followers, an explanation 
of how the mind develops as well Though it is impossible 
to enter into details here, it must be borne in mind that 
Locke's philosophical and psychological views do not always 
accord with his views on education. The one fundamental 
thing that makes Locke a representative of the disciplinary 
education throughout is his idea of the human mind as a 
mere blank to begin with that has its virtues and powers 
worked into it from the outside through its formation of 
habits. In respect to many other important points, as will 
be seen, Locke agrees with the naturalists who, opposing 
Locke on this point, held that all such powers came as the 
development of powers from within, according to a wholly 
natural process. Development, according to Locke, came 
only through the formation of habit through discipline. 

Our main interest, however, is in the educational theory 
of Locke, not in his philosophy. In his Essay and more 
especially in his Conduct of the Understanding, he shows how 
this type of mind can be developed, that is, through such a 
training or discipline as will strengthen all its powers. This 
is not to be done merely by study and reading, but more 
largely by reflection and meditation. These views must be 
taken into account in the examination of his Thoughts con- 
ccTning Education (1693), which is the one work by which 
his educational ideas are usually judged. It is entirely one- 
sided to formulate Locke's educational ideas from this one 
treatise, the more so since it contains advice written to a 
friend concerning the education of his own sons and it is 
specifically stated by Locke that much of it has only this 
special application. This is particularly true of that portion 
of it which deals with the intellectual aspect of education 
which is more broadly treated in Locke's other works. 

As the most important and influential of all English writers 

2L 



514 History of Educatio7i 

on the subject of education, or, at least as ranking with 
Ascham and Spencer, the main thoughts of Locke's treatise 
deserve presentation altogether aside from the connection 
they may have \yith any general tendency. However, it is 
just these fundamental conceptions, as distinguished from the 
many valuable suggestions and ideas scattered throughout 
the treatise, that give Locke his relation to the disciplinarians. 
It is the consideration of isolated ideas and general remarks 
that leads to his classification with the realists, or humanists, 
or naturalists, as is done by so many students of the subject. 

The aspects of education according to Locke are three : 
physical, moral, intellectual. The aims are, correspondingly, 
vigor of body, virtue, and knowledge. The first is funda- 
mental as a basis. This being provided for, the aims of 
education are, as he states in another place, virtue, wisdom, 
breeding and learning in the order of their importance. 

Physical Education. — " A sound mind in a sound body is 
a short but full description of a happy state in this world. 
He that has these two, has little more to wish for ; and he 
that wants either of them, will be but little the better for 
anything else." These are the opening sentences of the 
Thoughts, the first thirty paragraphs of which are given to the 
discussion of physical education — one of the first and yet 
one of the sanest of such treatises. The principle under- 
lying it all, the scanty and loose clothing, the hard beds, the 
open air, the simple even rigid diet, is that of the hardening 
process, — rigid discipline. "Thus I have done," he says in 
conclusion, "with what concerns the Body and Health, which 
reduces itself to these few and easy observable Rules : Plenty 
of Open Aij', Exercise, and Sleep, plain Diet, no Wine or 
Strong Drink and very little or no Physick, not too warm and 
strait ClotJiing, especially the Head and Feet kept cold, and 
the Feet often used to cold Water and exposed to Wet'' 

Moral Education. — One of the most striking of Locke's 
positions, as well as one of the soundest of them, is the 



Disciplinary Coitceptio7^ of Education 515 

clear distinction he ever holds in mind between education 
and instruction. This explains the divergence between 
Locke's views and those of the educators of the prevail- 
ing disciplinary school. With the latter, education came 
to be identified with instruction, as it in turn became a 
rigid and formal discipline. With Locke it is education 
as a whole that is a discipline. With instruction as merely 
the method of intellectual education, — a method less rigid 
and exact than with the prevailing Schoolmen, because affect- 
ing only one aspect of education and that of secondary im- 
portance, — the primary object of education is the formation 
of character, 

" 'Tis VirtiLe then, direct Virtue, which is the hard and 
valuable part to be aimed at in Education, and not a forward 
Pertness, or any little Arts of Shifting. All other Considera- 
tions and Accomplishments should give way and be postponed 
to this. This is the solid and substantial Good which Tutors 
should not only read, lecture, and talk of, but the Labor and 
Art of Education should furnish the Mind with, and fasten 
there, and never cease till the young man had a true Relish 
of it,' and placed his Strength, hi^ Glory, and his Pleasure in 
it." 

But it is rather the manner in which this great end is to be 
accomplished that indicates again how, fundamentally, Locke 
holds throughout to the disciplinary conception of education. 

" As the strength of the Body," he remarks in beginning 
his discussion of moral education, " lies chiefly in being able 
to endure Hardships, so also does that of the Mind, and the 
great Principle and Foundation of all Virtue and Worth is 
placed in this : That a Man is able to deny himself his own 
desires, cross his own inclinations and purely follow what Rea- 
son directs as best, tho' the appetite lean the other way. . . . 
It seems plain to me that the Principle of all Virtue and 
Excellency lies in the Power of denying ourselves the Satis- 
faction of our own Desires, where Reason does not authorize 
them. This Power is to be got and improved by Custom, 



5i6 History of Education 

made easy and familiar by an early Practice. If, therefore, I 
might be heard, I would advise that contrary to the ordinary 
way, children should be used to submit their Desires and go 
without their Longings, even from their very Cradles. The 
first thing they should learn to know should be that they were 
not to have anything because it pleased them, but because it 
was thought fit for them." 

So here again education at basis is a discipline. Virtue is 
to be obtained by the formation of good habits through a long 
discipline of the desires. How erroneous it is to class Locke 
with Rousseau is seen in this most fundamental of all his edu- 
cational principles. It is true that the process is to be made 
as pleasurable as possible for the child, and great severit}^ 
especially as regards corporal punishment, is to be avoided ; 
but the secret of all education is to control the natural desires 
and instincts by thwarting them and forming the habit of their 
control, and not at all by following them implicitly as with the 
naturalists. It is in this respect that, later, Rousseau says, 
"Form no habits." But, on the contrary, Locke says, "It is 
not that the Performance of a single Act is in itself to be 
deprecated perhaps ; but the Formation of Habit is all-im- 
portant." He even grants that it possesses greater impor- 
tance in education than reason. "Habits," he says, "work 
more constantly and with greater facility than Reason, which, 
when we have most need of it, is seldom fairly consulted and 
more rarely obeyed." 

This education through moral discipline is to be carried 
out by emphasizing authority, either that of the parent or 
master, the latter preferably a tutor. However, Locke depre- 
cates the severity and the arbitrariness with which such au- 
thority was customarily exercised. The greater part of the 
Thoughts is devoted to a discussion of the various virtues, — 
justice, liberality,' fortitude, truthfulness, honesty, industry, 
and good breeding in general ; to the methods of developing 
these things, authority, punishment, rewards, praise ; and to 



Disciplinary Conception of Education 5 1 7 

the appropriate time of each. The substance of all, however, 
is that moral education, as physical, is a hardening process, 
— the schooling of desires to the control of reason through 
habits formed by constant denial of natural wants. Let one 
illustration suffice : — - 

" But since the great Foundation of Fear in Children is 
Pain, the way to harden and fortify Children against Fear 
and Danger is to accustom them to suffer Pain. This 'tis pos- 
sible will be thought, by kind Parents, a very unnatural thing 
towards their Children ; and by most, unreasonable, to en- 
deavour to reconcile any one to the Sense of Pain, by bringing 
it upon him. 'Twill be said : ' It may perhaps give the Child 
an Aversion for him that makes him suffer; but can never 
recommend to him Suffering itself. This is a strange Method. 
You will not have Children whipp'd and punish'd for their 
Faults, but you would have them tormented for doing well, 
or for tormenting sake.' I doubt not but such Objections as 
these will be made, and I shall be thought inconsistent with 
myself, or fantastical, in proposing it. I confess it is a thing 
to be managed with great Discretion, and therefore it falls 
not out amiss, that it will not be receiv'd or relish'd, but by 
those who consider well, and look into the Reason of Things. 
I would not have Children much beaten for their Faults, be- 
cause I would not have them think bodily Pain the greatest 
Punishment : And I would have them, when they do well, 
be sometimes put in Pain, for the same Reason, that they 
might be accustom'd to bear it, without looking on it as 
the greatest Evil. How much Education may reconcile young 
People to Pain and Sufferance, the Examples of Sparta do 
sufficiently shew : And they who have once brought them- 
selves not to think bodily Pain the greatest of Evils, or that 
which they ought to stand most in fear of, have made no 
small Advance towards Virtue. But I am not so foolish to 
propose the Lacedcemoniaii Discipline in our Age or Consti- 
tution. But yet I do say, that inuring Children gently to 
suffer some Degrees of Pain without shrinking, is a way to 
gain Firmness to their Minds, and lay a Foundation for 
Courage and Resolution in the future Part of their Lives." ^ 

1 Thoughts, par. 115; Quick edition, pp. 98-100, 



5i8 History of Education 

Intellectual Education. — When we come to this phase 
of Locke's ideas, the fundamental principle is not so clearly 
revealed, for there is somewhat of a conflict between the views 
expressed in the Thoiigtits and those in Locke's other writ- 
ings. But here again, if fundamental ideas alone are con- 
sidered, the discrepancy disappears. This portion of the 
Thoughts- is devoted for the most part to a consideration of 
the materials of study, concerning which Locke agrees in 
most points with the sense-realists and the encyclopedists. 
Even here, however, the disciplinary view is fundamental as 
will be seen in this conclusion : — 

" Learning must be had, but in the second Place, as sub- 
servient only to greater Qualities. Seek out somebody that 
may know how discreetly to frame his Manners : Place him 
in Hands where you may, as much as possible, secure his 
Innocence, cherish and nurse up the good, and gently correct 
and weed out any bad Inclinations, and settle in him good 
Habits. This is the main Point, and this being provided for, 
Learning may be had into the Bargain, and that, as I think, 
at a very easy rate, by Methods that may be thought on." 

It is when we turn to Locke's philosophical writings, more 
especially his Conduct of the Understanding, that his concep- 
tion of the intellectual aspect of education is clearly revealed. 
Long ago this work was termed a "treatise on the moral 
discipline of the intellect." In it is best seen his conception 
of education as an intellectual discipline, which is of far 
wider scope than the prevailing discipline of formal methods 
of linguistic studies. Here also, in stating his fundamental 
principle, is given the justification for his encyclopedism — 
together with its great difference from that of Comenius. 

" The business of education is not to make the young per- 
fect in any one of the sciences, but so to open and dispose 
their minds as may best make them capable of any, when they 
shall apply themselves to it. . . . It is therefore to give them 
this freedom that I think they should be made to look into 



Disciplinary Conception of Education 519 

all sorts of knowledge and exercise their understanding in so 
wide a variety or stock of knowledge. But I do not propose 
it as a variety and stock of knowledge but a variety and 
freedom of thinking ; as an increase of the powers and activ- 
ities of the mind, not as an enlargement of its possessions." 

The entire treatise is devoted to a reiteration of the idea 
that intellectual education is a formation of habit of thought 
through exercise and discipline. 

" The faculties of our souls are improved and made useful 
to us just after the same manner as our bodies are. Would 
you have a man write or paint, dance or fence well, or per- 
form any other manual operation dexterously and with ease, 
let him have ever so much vigor and activity, suppleness and 
address naturally, yet nobody expects this from him unless he 
has been used to it, and has employed time and pains in 
fashioning and forming his hand or outward parts to these 
motions. Just so it is in the mind ; would you have a man 
reason well, you must use him to it betimes, exercise his mind 
in observing the connection of ideas and following them in 
train." 

Respecting the choice of subject-matter appropriate to this 
end, he continues in the manner characteristic of this entire 
school of educational thought : — 

" Nothing does this better than mathematics, which there- 
fore I think should be taught all those who have the time 
and opportunity, not so nmch to make them matheviaticians, 
as to make them reasonable creatures ; for though we call our- 
selves so, because we are born to it if we please, yet we may 
truly say nature gives us but the seeds of it. We are born to 
be, if we please, rational creatures, but it is use and exercise 
that makes us so, and we are indeed so no further than 
industry and application has carried us. ... I have men- 
tioned mathematics as a way to settle in the mind a habit of 
reasoning closely and in train ; not that I think it necessary 
that all men should be deep mathematicians, but that having 
got the way of reasoning, which that study necessarily brings 
the mind to, they might be able to transfer it to other parts 
of knowledge as they shall have occasion." 



520 History of Edtication 

Locke as a Representative of Realism. — It must be admitted 
that this classification of Locke is not the usual educational 
one ; rather is he most frequently grouped with Montaigne, 
Bacon and Comenius, or with Rousseau. While Locke had 
much in common with each of these men, it is here main- 
tained that this similarity was in regard to views that were 
incidental or subordinate to the fundamental conception 
explained above. With Montaigne the points of agreement 
are very numerous. Both objected to the greater part of the 
existing education ; both held that the formation of character 
for life in the existing society — that is, virtue as opposed to 
mere intellectual training — was the real aim of education; 
both preferred the education by a tutor to that of the school ; 
both recommended travel as an important constituent 
means ; both emphasized the importance of physical educa- 
tion ; both objected to learning " by heart " ; both held that 
Latin was to form a part of the curriculum because a knowl- 
edge of this language was yet a part of the equipment of a 
gentleman of the world ; both held that education should be 
practical and fit for the real life of the time. And yet there 
was a wide divergence in their conception of what constituted 
virtue and the demands of real life and a yet wider diver- 
gence, amounting to a total disagreement, respecting the funda- 
mental character of the process by which these aims were 
to be reached. And this divergence, whether in regard to 
the physical, the moral, or the intellectual aspect of education, 
is that which constitutes Locke a " disciplinarian " in his con- 
ception of education. The point wherein Locke most closely 
approximates the views of Montaigne is the one place where 
he clings to authority and makes education a discipline 
dependent upon that authority. As Professor Davidson re- 
marks, " In education he replaces the authority of God by 
the authority of society, the clergy by the landed gentry." 

There is an agreement with the sense-realists on both the 
content and the method side. But as previously explained, the 



Disciplinary Conception of Education 521 

encyclopedisYn of Locke appears only where he is con- 
sidering the needs of his one particular pupil, as a pros- 
pective member of the English gentry, and even there this 
wide range of subjects was to be used largely as a dis- 
cipline. There is hardly any mention of the natural sci- 
ences, as held fundamental by Bacon and as introduced by 
Comenius into the curriculum. The general view of Locke 
concerning the subjects of study would place him as the 
best representative of the disciplinary conception, in that 
it was the process of learning and not the thing learned 
that was of importance. With regard to this process of 
learning, or method, there was much more in common with 
Bacon and Comenius ; but with these latter it was decidedly 
the thing learned rather than the process that determined their 
conception of education. In his realistic or empirical philoso- 
phy Locke but formulated on the subjective side what Bacon 
had previously formulated objectively. Knowledge in its 
elementary form comes altogether through the senses and 
must so be acquired, though the processes of observation 
must quickly be supplemented by higher ones. " Children 
may be taught anything which falls under senses, especially 
their sight, as far as their memories only are exercised." The 
development from such a basis and the simplest forms of 
knowledge to the most complex forms of knowledge is by 
observance of the inductive method. Much of the Conduct 
of the Undei'standing is devoted to an elaboration of this 
point. " In learning anything, as little should be proposed 
to the mind at once as is possible ; and that being under- 
stood and fully mastered, to proceed to the next adjoining 
part yet unknown." 

And again in connection with the same subject (intellec- 
tual " despondency ") he says : — 

"Things that in a remote and confused view seem very 
obscure must be approached by gentle and regular steps ; 
and what is most visible, easy, and obvious in them, first 



'"bv.. 



522 History of Education 

considered. Reduce them into their distinct parts ; and 
then in their due order bring all that should be known con- 
cerning every one of these parts into plain and simple ques- 
tions ; and then what was thought obscure, perplexed, and 
too hard for our weak parts, will lay itself open to the under- 
standing in a fair view, and let the mind into that which 
before it was awed with, and kept at a distance from a? 
wholly mysterious. 

The surest way for a learner in this, as in all other cases, 
is not to advance by jumps and large strides; let that which 
he sets himself to learn next be indeed the next ; i.e. as nearly 
conjoined with what he knows already as is possible ; let it 
be distinct but not remote from it ; let it be new, and what 
he did not know before, that the understanding may advance ; 
but let it be as little at once as may be, that its advances may 
be clear and sure. All the ground that it gets this way it 
will hold. This distinct, gradual growth in knowledge is 
firm and sure ; it carries its own light with it in every step of 
its progression in an easy and orderly train ; than which there 
is nothing of more use to the understanding. And though 
this perhaps may seem a very slow and lingering way to 
knowledge, yet I dare confidently affirm that whoever will 
try it in himself or any one he will teach, shah find the 
advances greater in this method than they would in the 
same space of time have been in any other he could have 
taken." 



Locke as a Representative of the Naturalistic Tendency. — 

In a sense, Locke is the founder of the naturalistic movement 
in education, for in many respects, Rousseau freely acknowl- 
edges indebtedness to him. Yet, as has been previously 
noticed, there was fundamental disagreement on the most 
vital point, in that Locke held that the very purpose of 
education was to thwart and thus, through discipline, to 
bring under the control of reason and authority the natural 
tendencies of the child. The sensationalism of Locke be- 
came the philosophical basis of the naturalism of Rousseau 
so far as it sought one in the nature of knowledge. Both 
believed that education must be based upon a sound physique, 



Disciplinary Conception of Education 523 

cared for as a distinct plan of education ; both believed that 
education in its earlier stages was a training in sense percep- 
tion ; both held that the process of education should be made 
pleasurable and the harshness and cruelty of accepted prac- 
tices done away with ; both believed in making learning easy, 
— Locke so far as consistent with his fundamental tenets, — 
and that the natural curiosity of the child should be taken 
advantage of; both held that books were not the most im- 
portant source of learning; both believed that children should 
be educated morally by allowing them to suffer the natural 
consequences of their own acts, though with Rousseau this 
was to be the fundamental principle, while Locke made much 
use of authority. Locke, as did Rousseau, ostensibly sup- 
planted authority by reason ; and yet Locke found much 
that was reasonable in authority. In respect to the funda- 
mental principle underlying the physical, the moral, and the 
intellectual aspects of education, Rousseau, despite their 
special points of similarity, entered a protest against the view 
held by Locke. 

THE DISCIPLINARY EDUCATION IN THE SCHOOLS. 
In England. — The trenchant criticism which Locke formu- 
lated against the type of education prevailing in the English 
public schools should not blind one to the fact that funda- 
mentally their views of education were the same. What 
Locke objected to was that the schools confined their disci- 
pline to exclusively intellectual training; and that in this 
training they emphasized activities of the mind that were not 
the most important; and that the means they used, especially 
the writing of Latin themes and verse, were too restricted 
and were calculated to develop certain abilities that were of 
little value. The subsequent emphasis which these schools 
laid upon the importance of physical and moral disciphne, 
through games and sports and out-of-door life in general, 
with all the training which came from the struggle for leader- 



524 History of Education 

ship among boys thrown almost entirely upon their own 
responsibility for government and the regulation of their 
relations among themselves, was due to a considerable extent 
to the influence of Locke's Thoughts. 

The work of these public schools is typical of all educa- 
tional work in England during all of the eighteenth and the 
greater part of the seventeenth and of the nineteenth cen- 
turies. The very extensive use of corporal punishment for 
the slightest offenses or deficiencies; the important influence 
exerted by the fagging system, in which the younger boys 
served as the personal attendants and servants of the older 
boys, performing all menial services such as keeping their 
rooms, preparing their breakfasts, building fires, running 
errands, etc.; the custom of governing the school and inflict- 
ing punishment in all save the most serious offenses by these 
same " sixth form " boys ; all these indicate how completely, 
in respect to "virtue and breeding," education in the dominant 
English view had become and continued to be a discipline. 

On the intellectual side the situation was even more striking, 
since nowhere else can one find dominant for so long a 
period, an elementary and secondary education with such a 
paucity of intellectual content. Beyond the mastery of the 
rudiments of grammar, which were ordinarily required for 
entrance, the entire work of from six to nine years was 
devoted to Latin and Greek prose composition and to the 
writing of verse, especially in the Latin. This was presumed 
to develop an appreciation for the classical literature, which 
constituted the sole content of their curriculum. This regime 
was hardly questioned until the opening of the nineteenth 
century, and for more than half a century additional the merits 
and demerits of Latin versification were discussed as though 
the whole question of educational values and of the subjects 
of study were compassed within these narrow limits. A brief 
description of the work of one of these schools — Westminster 
— in the seventeenth century is typical. 



Disciplinary Conception of Education 525 

" About a quarter of an hour after 5 in the morning we 
were called up by one of the Monitors of the chamber ; and 
after Latin prayers we went into the cloysters to wash, and 
thence in order, two by two, to the schoole, where we were to 
be by 6 of the clock at furthest. Between 6 and 8 we 
repeated our grammar parts (out of Lilie for Latin, out of 
Cambden for the Greek); 14 or 15 being selected and called 
out to stand in a semicircle before the Mr. and other scholars, 
and there repeate 4 or 5 leaves in either, the Mr. appointing 
who should begin and who should go on with such and such 
rules. After this we had two exercises that varied every 
other morning. The first morning we made verses extem- 
pore Latin and Greek, upon two or three several themes ; and 
they that made the best (two or three of them) had some 
money given them by the school-mr.,for the most part. The 
second morning, one of the form was called out to expound 
some part of a Latin or Greek author (Cicero, Livie, Isoc- 
rates. Homer, Apollinarius, Xenophon, &c.), and they of the 
two next forms were called to give an account of it some other 
part of the day ; or else they were all of them (or such as 
were picked out, of whom the Mr. made choice by the fear or 
confidence discovered in their looks)to repeate and pronounce 
distinctly without book some piece of an author that had been 
learned the day before. From 8 to' 9 we had time for Beaver, 
and recollection of ourselves, and preparation for future 
exercises. Betwixt 9 and 11, those exercises were read which 
had been enjoined us over night (one day in prose, the next 
day in verse), which were selected by the Mr. ; some to be 
examined and punished, others to be commended and proposed 
for imitation. Which being done, we had the practice of 
Dictarnina ; one of the 5th form being called out to translate 
some sentences out of an unexpected author {extempore^ into 
good Latin ; and then one of the 6th or 7th form to translate 
the same {^extempore also) into good Greek. Then the Mr. 
himself expounded some part of a Latin or Greek author (one 
day in prose, another in verse) wherein we were to be practised 
in the afternoon. At dinner and supper times we read some 
portion of the Latin Bible in a manuscript (to facilitate the 
reading of such hands) : and, the Prebendaries then having 
their table commonly in the Hall, some of them had often- 
times good remembrances sent unto them from thence, and 



526 History of Edttcation 

withal a theme to make or speak some extempore verses upon 
Betwixt I and 3, that lesson which out of some author 
appointed for that day had been by the Mr. expounded unto 
them (out of Cicero, Virgil, Homer, Euripides, Isocrates, 
Livie, Sallust, &c.) was to be exactly gone through by con- 
struing and other grammatical ways, examining all the 
Rhetorical figures, and translating it out of verse into prose, 
or out of prose into verse, out of Greek into Latin, or out of 
Latin into Greek. Then they were enjoined to commit that 
to memory against the next morning. Betwixt 3 and 4 we 
had a little respite : the Mr, walking out and they (in beaver- 
times) going in order to the Hall, and then fitting themselves 
for their next task. Between 4 and 5 they repeated a leaf or 
two of some book of Rhetorical figures, or choice Proverbs 
and Sentences, collected by the Mr. for that use. After, they 
were practised in translating some Dictamina out of Latin or 
Greek, or sometimes turning Latin or Greek verses into 
English verse. Then a theme was given them, whereupon to 
make prose of verses, Latin and Greek, against the next 
morning. After supper (in summer-time) they were three or 
four times in a week called to the Mr.'s chamber (especially 
they of the 7th form), and there instructed out of Hunter's 
Cosmographie, and practised to describe and find out cities 
and countries in the maps. Upon Sundays before morning 
prayers in summer they came commonly into the school (such 
as were King's scholars), and there construed some part of 
the gospel in Greek, or repeated part of the Greek catechism. 
In the afternoon they made verses upon the preacher's ser- 
mon, or epistle and gospel. The best scholars in the 7th form 
were appointed as Tutors to read and expound places of 
Homer, Virgil, Horace, Euripides, or other Greek and Latin 
authors, at those times (in the forenoon, or afternoon, or after 
beaver-times) wherein the scholars were in the school in 
expectation of the Mr. The scholars were governed by 
several Monitores (two for the Hall, as many for the Church, 
the School, the Fields, the cloyster — which last attended 
them to washing, and were called Monitores inimmidoj'uiri). 
The Captain of the School was over all these, and therefore 
called" Monitor Monitorum. These Monitors kept them 
strictly to speaking of Latin, in their several commands ; and 
withal they presented their complaints or Accusations (as we 



Disciplinary Conception of Education 527 

called them) every Friday morning, when the punishments 
were often redeemed by exercises, or favours shown to boys 
of extraordinary merit, who had the honour (by the Monitor 
Monitorum) many times to beg and prevail for such remis- 
sions. And so, at other times, other faults were often punished 
by scholastical tasks, as repeating whole orations out of Tullie, 
Isocrates, Demosthenes, or speeches out of Virgil, Thucydides, 
Xenophon, Euripides, &c." 

In the great survey of all of these schools in England made 
by Carlisle, well into the nineteenth century, the curriculum 
of the same school — though the curriculum is everywhere 
practically the same and deserving of only a sentence or so in 
the many pages devoted to each school — is as follows: 
" The Latin and Greek Grammars of the College only are 
used. The routine of Education comprises the Classics 
throughout, and Composition in Verse and Prose. The other 
parts of education, such as French, Arithmetic, Mathematics, 
etc., are not taught in this School." 

In Eton, the most important of all these schools, mathe- 
matics, though taught privately by some of the masters much 
earlier, was not introduced as a part of the curriculum until 
near the middle of the century. The reforms since the 
middle of the century have introduced the modern side, — 
modern languages and the sciences, ^ — but the conception of 
education is yet much the same. 

In the English universities the spirit until very recent times 
was similar. The classics and mathematics constitute the 
bulk of the curriculum. From these, until 1850 at Oxford 
and until 185 1 at Cambridge, the subjects for examination 
must be chosen. The fact that none of the great scientists 
of the nineteenth century either was trained or did his life's 
work in connection with the universities is one of the most 
striking evidences of the narrow conception of education 
prevailing therein. 

In Germany. — No more significant evidence of the hold of 



528 History of Education 

this conception upon the German educators could be found 
than the term applied to their representative school — the 
gymnasium, the place for the discipline, training or gymnastic 
of the mind, as with the old Greek the" gymnasium had 
become, when this higher training of the mind had replaced 
the previous training of the body. 

As noticed in the previous chapter, the realistic conception 
of education found no response in the schools until near the 
middle of the eighteenth century. Even then it was quite 
slight for the remainder of the century. The narrow human- 
istic education upon the disciplinary basis prevailed almost 
universally. There existed as yet little national spirit that de- 
manded an, education as a basis for the unification in spirit of 
the German people. Such unity in ideas and in spirit as they 
possessed was largely due to the Church, which controlled 
education as a means subordinate to itself. The Church here 
as elsewhere held the disciplinary conception of education. 
The awakening at the opening of the nineteenth century, 
which gave to the German people an entirely new conception 
of the purpose of education, is to be noticed later. This 
change in conception of purpose modified the conception of 
method or procedure, or at least, relegated the disciplinary 
thought to a secondary place. The Neiv Humanism would 
use the classical languages for an entirely different purpose, 
— that of developing individualism and national spirit and 
vitality, through the spirit and substance of the ancient, espe- 
cially Greek life. Latin became secondary to Greek, and the 
formal study for discipline and for scholastic form was re- 
placed by the ideal of culture as shown in a life of activity. 
But political reaction, followed by revolution, produced a 
decided educational reaction, and the disciplinary idea as the 
bulwark of authority again became dominant. Even as late 
as 1892, the German emperor, speaking of the character of the 
education dominant in the German higher schools, could 
say : — 



Disciplinary ConceptioJi of Education 529 

" If any one enters into a discussion with these gentlemen 
[the supporters of the rigid classical gymnasien] on this point, 
and attempts to show them that a young man ought to be 
prepared, to some extent at least, for life and its manifold 
problems, they will tell him that such is not the function of 
the school, its principal aim being the discipline or gymnastic 
of the mind, and that if this gymnastic were properly con- 
ducted the young man would be capable of doing all that is 
necessary in life. I am of the opinion that we can no longer 
be guided by this doctrine." 

In America. — In our own country the breaking away from 
the dominance of the old ideas came much earlier, on account 
of social reasons. However, the disciplinary idea is held quite 
widely even yet and controls much of school work. When 
the old Latin grammar schools gave way to the academies, 
in the later eighteenth century, the first step was made. 
The encroachment of the sciences and the modern culture 
subjects in the colleges went on gradually, until by the middle 
of the nineteenth century they were well established. With 
the adoption of the elective system, the old disciplinarian 
basis was largely abandoned, as it has been since even in the 
collegiate study of the classical languages. 

Strange to say, it was in the field of elementary education 
that the conception dominated the longer. The idea did not 
control so completely that subjects valuable for their con- 
tent were altogether excluded ; yet, until recently, the form 
studies, such as grammar, arithmetic, and spelling, constituted 
the core and, in quantity, the bulk of the elementary curric- 
ulum. The training, or discipline, given by these subjects 
was held to be the element of chief importance in the early 
years of schoohng. Little by httle, since the opening of the 
nineteenth century, the content studies, such as literature, 
history, geography, and the natural sciences have made their 
way from the academies and secondary schools down into the 
elementary grades. The reasons underlying these changes 
are to be discussed in subsequent chapters. 

2M 



530 History of Education 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

(a) The Disciplinary Conception of Education. 

Bain, Edncatio?i as a Science. (New York, 1893.) 

Farrar, Essays on a Liberal Education. (London, 1868.) 

Fouillde, Education from a National Standpoint. (New York, 1892.) 

Hinsdale, The Dogma of Formal Discipline. Educational Review.^ 

Vol. VIII, p. 128. 
K.'aox, Y\c&%\\n\is, Liberal Ediication. (London, 1752.) 
Mill, J. S., Inaugural Address. 

O'Shea, Education as Adjustment, pp. 246-2S4. (New York, 1903.) 
Thorndike, Educational Psychology, Ch. VIII. (New York, 1903.) 
Wendell, Our National Superstition. North American Review, Vol. 

CLXXIX, p. 388. 
Whewell, Of a Liberal Education. 
Youmans, Culture demanded by Modern Life, Ch. I. 

(b) Disciplinary Education in the Schools. 

Arnold, Essays on Discipline of Public Schools. 

Arnold. Essays on Rugby School — Use of Classics. In Miscellaneous 

Works. (New York, 1845.) 
Carlisle, Endowed Schools. 2 vols. (London, 1818.) 
Collins, The Public Schools. (London, 1848.) 
Russell, German Higher Schools, pp. 46-108. (New York, 1898.) 
Tarver, Observations of a Foster Parent. (London, 1897.) 

(c) fohn Locke. 

Barnard, English Pedagogy, First Series, pp. 207-342. (Hartford, 1876.) 

Bourne, Life of Jolin Locke. 2 vols. (New York, 1876.) 

Browning, Educational Theories, pp. 1 18-135. (New York, 1888.) 

Fowler, John Locke. (London, 1880.) 

Gill, Systetn of Education, pp. 19-38. (Boston, 1899.) 

Laurie, Educational Opinion Since tJie Renaissance, pp. 181-235. 

Locke, Thoughts on Educatiofi. 

Locke, Conduct of the Human Understanding. 

Locke, Of Study (in Quick, fohii Locke), pp. 182-203. 

Munroe, The Educational Ideal, pp. 75-124. (Boston, 1896.) 

Quick, Educational Reformers, pp. 219-238. (New York, 1892.) 

Quick, Locke on Education. (Cambridge, 1899.) 



Disciplinary Conception of Ediication 531 



TOPICS FOR FURTHER INVESTIGATION 

1. What similarities and dissimilarities between the disciplinary educa- 
tion of the Middle Ages and that of modern times? 

2. What historical connection between the disciplinary idea of education 
of the Middle Ages and its revival during the seventeenth century? 

3. What points of disagreement do you find between the philosophical 
and psychological theories of Locke and his educational doctrines? 

4. What are the arguments advanced by John Stuart Mill and Professor 
Whewell in their controversy of the early half of the nineteenth century 
concerning the educational value of the classics and mathematics ? 

5. In what respects did the religious view of the past centuries support 
the disciplinary conception of education? 

6. What are the arguments in favor of the disciplinary conception of 
education advanced in the Caiubridge Essays ? 

7. In what details does Locke agree with the sense-realists in their 
view of education? 

8. In what with Montaigne? With Rousseau? 

9. Give an account of the work of one of the English public schools 
previous to 1850. At the present time. 

ID. To what extent did the disciplinary view prevail in the early Ameri- 
can colleges? Give a detailed account. 

1 1 . Give an analysis of the conception of the disciplinary education as 
expounded at present. 

12. What is the explanation of the fact that the public and the press 
frequently support the old disciplinary view of education in opposition to 
modern modifications of educational practices? 

13. State the problem of disciplinary education of our elementary 
schools of the present. 



Chronological Table of Educational Development during the 
Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries 



Political 


Literary 
Men, 


Scientists, 
Philoso- 


Educational 




Events and 


Religious 


Writings and 


Educational Events 


Personages 


Leaders, 

ETC. 


phers, 
etc. 


Educators 




1600. 


Bunyan 


Galileo 


Ratich . 1571-1635 


1619 First Natural Science As- 


1618 1648. 


1628 1688 


1564-1642 


Comenius 


sociation (Rostock). 


Thirty Years' 


George Fox 


Hugo 


1592 1671 


i6ig. First comp.ed. (Weimar). 


War. 


1624-1691 


Grotius 


Comenius's 


1633 First el. school in America 


1620. Plymouth 


Spener 


1583-1645 


Great 


(N.Y.). 


settled. 


(Pietist) 


Bacon 


Didactic . 1630 


1635, Boston Latin. Grammar 


1648. Peace of 


1637-1702 


1561-1626 


Comenius's Orbis 


School. 


Westphalia. 


1673. Test 


Harvey 


Pictus . . 1657 


1636. Harvard founded. 


1649. Charles I 


Act, Eng. 


1578 i657|Milton's 


1642, School reforms of Gotha. 


beheaded. 


1685. Edict 


Hobbes 1 Tractate . 1644 


1643. Port Royal " Little 


1660. Restora- 


of Nantes 


i5S8-i679,Fenelon's Ed. of 


Schools." 


tion. 


revoked. 


Des Cartes 


GzHs . . 1687 


1647. Comp. School law in Mass. 


Louis XIV 


1695, 


1596-1650 


Lasalle's 


1693. William and Mary founded. 


1643-1715 


Toleration 


Boyle 


htstitutes, 1684 


1694 First modern university. 


1679. Habeas 


Act, Eng. 


1627-1691 


Locke's 


(Halle founded.) 


Corpus Act. 


Cornedle 




Thoughts . 1693 


1697. Teachers' seminary at 
Halle. 


1688 English 


1606-1684 






Revolution. 


La Fontaine 
1621-1685 

Racine 

1639-1699 






1699. Soc. for Prom, of Chris. 
Knowl. founded. 


1700. 


Fenelon 


Newton 


Francke, 1663-1727 


1700. Yale College founded. 


1713. Peace of 


1^51-1715 


1642-1727 


Rollin . 1661-1741 


1704. First American newspaper. 


Utrecht, 


Montesquieu 


Leibnitz 


Julius Hecker 


1709 First daily newspaper. 


Queen Anne 


1689-1755 


1646-1716 


1707-1768 


1724 Compulsory education of 


1702-1714 


Voltaire 


Halley 


Rousseau 


both sexes in Saxony. 


Frederick 


1694-1778 


1656-1742 


1712-1778 


1746. Princeton founded. 


William of 


Pope 


Bufifon 


Rousseau's 


1747. First real schule (in 


Prussia 


1688-1744 


1707-1788 


Emile . . 1762 


Berlin). 


1713-1740 


Richardson 


Linnseus 


Johann Basedow 


1748. First Lehrersemznar 


Frederick the 


1689-1761 


1707 1778 


1723-1790 


founded. 


Great 


De Foe 


Franklin 


Salzmann 


1751. Academy of Philadelphia 


1740-1786 


1661-1731 


1706-1790 


1744-1811 


founded. 


1756-1763. 


Addison 


Hume 


Campe . 1746-1818 


1754. Kings' (now Columbia) 


Seven Years' 


1672-1719 


1711-1776 


Pestalozzi 


College founded. 


War. 


Fielding 


Watt 


1746-1827 


1764. Expulsion of Jesuits from 


1757. British 


1707-1757 


1736-1819 


Pestalozzi's 


France. 


East India 


Gray 


Lavosier 


Leonard and 


1763, Special training required 


Empire 


1716 1771 


1743-1794 


Gertrude . 1781 


of all German teachers. 


founded. 


Jonathan 


Priestley 


Knox, Liberal 


1763. Founding of present 


1772 Partitiori 


Edwards 


1733 1804 


Education 1781 


system of Prussian schools. 


of Poland. 


1703-1758 


Adam 


Edgeworth, 


1774-1793. Basedow's 


1759-1773 to 


John 


Smith 


Practical 


Ph ila n th rop in 11 m . 


1814. Jesuit 


Wesley 


1723-1790 


Education 1798 


1783. Sunday-schools founded. 


Order 


1703-1791 


Lamarck 


Jean Paul Richter 


1784 University of State of 


suppressed. 


Diderot 


1744-1829 


1763-1825 


New York. 


1775-1783 


1713-1784 


Werner 


Frederick 


1785. Land endowments for 


Ameiican 


Helvetius 


1750-1817 


Augustus Wolf 


public schools in United States. 


Revolution. 


1715-1771 


Kant 


1759-1824 


1785. Webster's Speller. 


1789. First 


Condillac 


1724-1804 


Bell's Experi- 


1794. All Prussian teachers 


President 


1715-1780 


Herschel 


7ft e fit in 


declared State officials. 


inaugurated. 


Burns 


1738-1832 


Education, 1798 


1793, Decree of Rev. Convention 


1789 States 


1759-1796 


Schleier- 


Lancaster's 


on education. 


General. 


Schiller 


macher 


Mofiitorial 


17^4. National Normal School 
in France, 


Louis XVI 


1759-1805 


1768-1834 


System . 1798 


1774-1792 




Fichte 


Andrew Bell 


1795. Primary education 


1799. Bonaparte 




1762-1814 


1753-1832 


established in France. 


overthrows 




Laplace 


Joseph Lancaster 


1795. Lindley Murray's English 


Directory. 




1749-1827 


1778-1838 


grammar. 






Humboldt 


Noah Webster 


1798. Monitorial System 


1800. 




1767-1835 


1758 1843 


established. 



532 



CHAPTER X 

THE NATURALISTIC TENDENCY IN EDUCATION : 
ROUSSEAU 

RELATION TO PREVIOUS MOVEMENTS AND TO THE 
TIMES. — In order to understand the origin of the naturalis- 
tic movement in educational thought and practice, one must 
return to the various phases of the realistic movement in the 
seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries ; for out of these 
grew two movements which explain the formalism of the 
eighteenth century against which naturalism arose as a pro- 
test. The first of these was the orthodox religious formalism ; 
the second was the rationalistic formalism of The Enlighten- 
■meitt. 

On the one hand is found the formalism in religious 
thought and life growing out of pietism in Germany, Jan- 
senism in France, and Puritanism in England. Originating 
as protests against earlier religious formalism, each of these 
religious movements degenerated during the early eighteenth 
century into another type of religious formalism. That 
against which they rebelled had been a formalism of observ- 
ance. Puritanism and pietism were returns to the early 
Reformation emphasis on faith, to the simplicity of a non- 
ritualistic worship, and the earnestness of an intensely devo- 
tional life, which found expression in the conduct of everyday 
life. Jansenism was an emphasis on faith and an opposition 
to the ceremonial expression of religious feeling that was 
in strong contrast to the characteristic beliefs and practices 
of the Roman Catholic Church in general. These reform 

533 



534 History of Education 

tendencies had degenerated into a type of life that posited 
ideals impossible of actual realization by the masses of the 
people or even by the majority of their devotees; ideals which 
made the simplest amusements and pleasures heinous sins ; 
and which, consequently, perpetuated, even if they did not 
develop, a piety that on the part of many became affectation 
and hypocrisy, and on the part of others became fanaticism 
and a menace. The heinousness of bell ringing and ball play- 
ing to John Bunyan furnishes an example of this extreme 
pietism; but the reaction as seen in the depth and sincerity of 
Bunyan's religious experience was radically different from the 
prevailing spirit of a generation or so later. A tone of cant 
was introduced into literature and social intercourse, and 
underneath this a frivolity and licentiousness was introduced 
into the life of the times. There occurred a notable hiatus 
between profession and action, between faith formally ac- 
cepted and life actually Hved. The resulting hypocrisy was 
despised by those who, either through weakness of character 
or through social situation, were compelled to conform, and 
by those who honestly believed in the impotency of such 
rigid ideals of conduct and who had greater faith in the gen- 
uineness of human nature and the permissibility of the relaxa- 
tion and pleasures which it craved. 

The dominant formalism in France was of a somewhat 
different type. Here the Church retained all its former 
power, and exerted a most oppressive influence over thought 
and action. The reigning monarchs made amends for their 
licentiousness by persecution and inquisitorial torturing of 
those who dared question the authority of the Church, and 
purchased a similar indulgence for their aristocracy by a 
most intense loyalty to formal orthodoxy. " Ceremonial dis- 
play and outward magnificence merely veiled moral meanness 
and inward depravity ; punctilious attention to the rites of the 
Church, and a blind or feigned orthodoxy, only favored the 
spread of hypocrisy and of a secret and cynical skepticism." 



Naturalistic Tendency in Education 535 

This is the summary drawn by Flint. France had been dur- 
ing the seventeenth century the first nation of the world, and 
during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries had 
passed through a period comparable to the Periclean or 
Augustan ages of ancient civilizations. Victorious in war, 
France had spread abroad her power into other continents 
and possessed a court more brilliant than any in modern 
times. The French state was the model of absolutism ; 
French aristocracy had become possessed of all power and 
wealth. The French language was the language of the 
courts of Europe and of international communication ; French 
literature had reached a beauty of form not then attained by 
any other modern language ; French manners had attained 
a refinement and French society a perfection in form and in 
attractiveness that caused them to be imitated throughout 
Europe as the highest product of civilization. But the bril- 
liancy of Paris had been purchased at the expense of the 
provinces ; the power of the king had been bought with the 
slavery of his people ; his success in war with the impover- 
ishment of the country ; the extravagance of aristocratic 
society with the sordid lives of the common people. The 
supremacy of the orthodox Church had been brought about 
by the suppression of all right of individual judgment; the 
support of the nobility for the Church and State had been 
secured by unjust privileges and corrupt lives. In England 
similar pretentious piety and orthodoxy could exist alongside 
of laws that enumerated one hundred and sixty-four offenses 
punishable by death. Nor were these mere statutory forms, 
for there were many exctutions for most trivial offenses. 
Upon the Continent the Inquisition was even yet in operation. 
In Spain, in 1723, the daughter of the regent of France was 
treated to the public spectacle of the burning alive of nine 
heretics as a part of her marriage festivities. France yet for- 
bade the burial of the bodies of heretics in any cemetery ; 
and, in the centers more remote from the " enlightenment " 



536 History of Education 

of the capital, scoffing heretics yet had their tongues torn 
out. It is true that it was only the books of Rousseau that 
were burned by public hangmen, but two generations earlier 
it would have been the author instead of his writings. 

The picture has been painted many times, but it takes a 
large canvas for the details. Sufficient to say, that there 
prevailed an absolutism in politics, in religion, in thought, 
and in action that could continue only so long as great abil- 
ity was found in the rulers and so long as no one arose to 
lead the masses in revolt. The first revolt was that of the 
intellect against repression ; the second was that of the 
masses for the rights of the common man. On the thought 
side these two movements had much in common and are 
often included together. Yet, in certain fundamental things, 
like formalism and aristocracy, there was a radical diver- 
gence between them. This divergence gave to the natural- 
istic movement its chief features, and differentiates the latter 
half of the eighteenth century from the first half. 

However, it must be noted, that the two movements cannot 
be sharply differentiated, and that they are often included 
together under the term here restricted in its application 
to the first period alone. Such a use necessitates an odd 
grouping of men. The quiet, timid, even pious Locke, 
who may be said to have begun the movement, the satirical 
Voltaire and Swift, the formalistic Pope and Chesterfield, 
the emotionalistic Rousseau and Wordsworth, the anarchistic 
Danton and Robespierre — all participated. Thus in some 
respects the greatest diversity of ideas as well as of methods 
are represented. The latter part of the eighteenth century 
marks the complete break from the old system of thought 
and of social order, and the origin of the new systems of 
thought and of instruction which we call modern. But it 
/^ was the entire thought-movement of the century which pro- 
duced this. Therefore it is necessary to note the character- 
istics of both phases in order to understand the social and 



Naturalistic Tendency in Education 537 

intellectual development of the century ; but it is the latter 
phase, the naturalistic tendency, which is of peculiar interest 
to us, on account of its influence in the shaping of educa- 
tional thought. 

THE ILLUMINATION, OR THE ENLIGHTENMENT, is the 

term given to this movement of the early eighteenth century, 
though frequently it is used to include the latter part of the 
century as well. The latter movement — the naturalistic 
one — was made possible by the earlier one, — the Enlighten- 
ment, — and includes some features common to it. The term 
ilhiminati possesses greater definiteness and is applied to the 
group of philosophers, theological writers and " freethinkers " 
and literary writers of Germany and France in the early part 
of the century. 

This new movement, though it was a most notable step in 
the development of human freedom, was in its outcome but 
a new type of formalism, — the second spoken of as resulting 
from reaction to the earlier realistic movement. This eight- 
eenth-century formalism was materialistic as the former had 
been pietistic ; skeptical and rationalistic as the former had 
been religious and devotional — or at least ceremonial; 
aristocratic as that had been democratic. Holding that 
morality consisted in the observance of form and the preser- 
vation of proper outward appearance, it permitted the gross- 
est immorality, as is evidenced by the literature of the times. 
Rejecting the practices of Puritanism and pietism as hypoc- 
risy and revealed religion as superstition, it became openly 
atheistic or skeptical, and as with Hume and Gibbon in 
England and Voltaire and the encyclopedists in France, 
interpreted life from that position. In its origin it was a 
reaction against the existing formalism in thought and in 
belief, and against the absolutism of the Church. 

At bottom a protest against antiquated and arbitrary sys- 
tems of thought and of society, the Enlightenment rebelled 



538 Histoiy of Edtication 

against hierarchy and despotism in Church, State, and society; 
against superstition and ignorance in thought ; against hy- 
pocrisy in morals; — though often, as the price of freedom, 
with the resultant extreme of anarchism in social order, athe- 
ism and skepticism in thought, and license in morals. Estab- 
lishing as its fundamental principle a complete reliance upon 
human understanding and reason, it opposed all ancient 
abuses and along with these all forms of tyranny, whether 
in thought, in government, or in morals. Finally, it attacked 
the very foundations of all the institutions through which 
such authority was exercised, thus destroying or eliminating 
for the time being much that was woven into the very texture 
of a stable society and is ever essential to it. Through human 
reason alone was any true estimate of life now to be formu- 
lated and human happiness attained. 

The aim of the Enlightenment was to liberate the mind 
from the dominance of supernatural terrorism ; to establish 
the moral personality of the individual independent of ecclesi- 
astical and social forms ; to demonstrate- the intellectual 
freedom and sufficiency of"man ; to destroy the terrorisms 
over the feelings, the absolutism over thought, the tyranny 
over action, exercised especially by the Church, and, as sup- 
plementing the Church, the monarchy. The Enlightenment 
posited a supreme faith in the reason of the individual, in 
justice in the state, in toleration in religious beliefs, in liberty 
in political action, and in the rights of man. The entire period 
was controlled by a profound belief in the prerogative of the 
individual, his right to individual judgment, and to the 
determination of every question uninfluenced by the beliefs 
and superstitions of the Church and the traditions of society. 
Freedom of thought, liberty of conscience, sufficiency of reason 
for the conduct of life, were thus the watchwords and the 
keys of interpretation of this eighteenth-century movement. 

There were various phases to this new movement now to 
be briefly stated. Most fundamental among these was the 



Naturalistic Tendency in Education 539 

philosophical phase. In this respect the movement began in 
England with Locke, who stated the questions to be solved 
and indicated the source of the answers. Rejecting the 
older speculative philosophies, he sought the actual source of 
knowledge, the degree of its validity, and the extent to which 
human insight reached. All these questions were to be set- 
tled by investigation. The philosopher's rule was later formu- 
lated into the poet's dictum, " The proper study of mankind 
is man," They held that all ideas arise from experience ; that 
there are none innate. Sensation to them was the primary 
source of all knowledge ; though reflection was a secondary 
source. Philosophy delineated the secular view of life, 
individualism was emphasized, the reason exalted. Sole re- 
liance was to be placed in the human understanding. 

If philosophy furnished the fundamental element in the 
Enhghtenment, the religious phase was certainly the most 
prominent. While Locke wrote in defense of religion, this 
did not prevent his philosophy from becoming the basis of 
all attacks upon it. The emphasis on reason was so promi- 
nent that the term " rationalism," in its narrower technical 
meaning, yet indicates that particular movement which 
opposed both the belief in the supernatural religion of the 
Church and in the naturalistic religion of the succeeding 
period. To the rationalists the human understanding was 
the final test of religious truth. Rationalism rejected revela- 
tion either as false or, since merely confirmatory in its main 
points to the teachings already given by reason, as unneces- 
sary. The orthodoxy of the times, previously mentioned as 
productive of the pietistic movement and as responsible for 
the formalism in education, prepared the way for rationalism 
through its own emphasis upon the importance of logical 
statement and through its neglect of the spirit of religion. 

But to the French philosophers and writers this religious 
phase of the movement took upon itself a more practical 
character. There it was not only the formalism of belief, but 



540 History of Education 

the formalism of life and of ceremonial that was objected to ; 
not only the superstition in thought, but the immorality and 
heartlessness in action that was striven against ; not only 
the harshness of orthodox)^, but the violence and the tyranny, 
the persecution and the terrorism produced in suppressing 
all difference in opinion, that called forth the opposition of 
these men to the one great force, that, as they believed, 
opposed the exercise of individual judgment, the use of rea- 
son, the development of intelligence, and the progress of 
society. Against the Church, then, they concentrated all 
their efforts. Voltaire (1694-1788) devoted his long life, 
productive of literary works numbering among the hundreds, 
to the overthrow of " The Infamous," as the Church was 
termed. As Louis XIV remarked, " I am the state," Vol- 
taire, it is said, might well repeat, " I am the century." 
Voltaire and his co-workers identified the obscurantist ecclesi- 
asticism of the times with Christianity, Christianity with 
religion, and boldly argued that all religion was an evil, an 
impediment to progress, a tyrant over reason, and that the 
Church was the great curse of the times, — was " The 
Infamy." Judged from the point of view of those attacked, 
it has usually seemed that the aim of Voltaire and his fol- 
lowers was merely negative and destructive. Yet he chiefly 
attacked narrow dogmatism, persecution, inhumanity, special 
privileges, which were in those times all summed up in the 
Church, and aimed to make them hated by all. His posi- 
tive aim was to free human thought from the superstition and 
bondage of tradition, to establish the right of individual 
judgment, to further the enlightenment of the people and the 
exaltation of reason. If reason is to be the guide to life and 
the test of all custom and institutional life, it is necessary to 
free it from prejudice and superstition. Since, as the illiinii- 
nati held, these are rooted in religion, fostered and preserved 
by the Church, it is necessary to overthrow the Church and to 
substitute a religion of reason or of nature. To this modified 



Naturalistic Tendency in Education 541 

belief in a natural religion, Voltaire came in the later part of 
his life. 

That phase of the movement which was directed to the 
organization and life of society was characterized by the 
dominance of the same unbounded faith in reason. Conse- 
quently the monastic custom, the celibate life of the clergy, 
the ceremonials, and the repressive tyranny of the Church 
called forth the bitterest attacks because of their " unreason- 
ableness," rather than because of their hollowness and the 
lack of conformity of ideal with practice. Thus the same 
standard controlled in regard to social and especially political 
organization as did in the attitude toward religion. Even in 
France, the idea of natural rights, of equality before the 
law, of individual choice as the source of sovereignty, and 
many of those ideas that became of such tremendous practi- 
cal importance in the latter part of the century had been 
often suggested and elaborated. Now commended by reason, 
they acquired a new vitality, a new meaning 

Another effect of this exaltation of reason deserves notice. 
Voltaire and his co-workers of the early half of the century 
were no less aristocrats than those aristocrats of privilege 
whom they opposed. Whether they expressed it in so many 
words or not, they held that the lower classes were not amen- 
able to reason, that they were incapable of being educated, 
that they were but little above the savages, and consequently 
that for them religion had a legitimate function. 

The thought-movement of the early part of the century 
was aristocratic, because it was rationalistic. It aimed to 
secure the culture of the few, the overthrow of narrow tradi- 
tionalism and dogmatism in the lives of those who controlled 
society and the control of reason among the educated class. It 
would substitute a new aristocracy of intelligence and wealth 
for the old aristocracy of family, of position, of the Church. 
It possessed a cleverness, a wit, a brilhancy that contrasted 
with the narrowness and dullness of the old ; but it was for 



542 History of Education 

the chosen few and had no regard for the masses sunk in 
degradation and overwhehiied by wrongs and tyranny. 
While the illuminati opposed tyranny and oppression in 
human thought, they but aspired to profit by participation in 
the social and political privileges of the few. There was a 
selfishness and inconsistency about it all that but made more 
glaring the injustice to the many who must support the privi- 
leges of the few. 

The intellectualism, the aristocratic tendency of the earlier 
movement, had developed into a formalism — a formalism of 
skepticism, of selfish indifference, of polished social inter- 
course, of stilted forms of an artificial society — that was 
rational enough to be sure, but that, through its artificiality, 
had lost all approach to a natural mode of living, and through 
its cosmopolitanism all national and local feeling. The 
propaganda of the Enlightenment had been confined to no 
one country ; literature in the vernacular first came to be 
cosmopolitan through Locke, Pope, and the novelists of Eng- 
land, through Voltaire and the encyclopedists of France 
and the philosophers of Germany. This stilted wisdom and 
affected superiority of the learned class, now shunning sim- 
plicity as a mark of vulgarity and naturalness as a mark of 
irrationality, developed into a formaUsm that was no less 
repressive to the masses and no less distasteful to many. The 
formalism of morality into which the pietistic and Puritanic 
morality degenerated is well illustrated in the English novels 
of the eighteenth century, especially those of Richardson. 
The formalism of the Enlightenment is equally well illustrated 
in the conception of morality, of politeness, and of sympathy 
revealed in Lord Chesterfield's Letters. The later eighteenth 
century, weary of the formalism of both, became, under the 
leadership of Rousseau, directed to a new purpose. 

THE NATURALISTIC PHASE OF THE EIGHTEENTH- 
CENTURY MOVEMENT. — Until the middle of the century, 



Naturalistic Tendency in Education 543 

philosophy and reason concentrated most of their attacks 
upon the Church ; after the middle of the century, criticism 
was directed toward the evils of the social and political organi- 
zation of life. The earlier aim was to destroy the existing 
abuses ; the latter rather toward building up an ideal society. 

But there were other more fundamental distinctions between 
the two movements. The rule of reason had come to be for 
many no less a tyranny than the rule of authority. As opposed 
to the earlier belief, the view was now urged that the senses 
were not always to be depended upon and that reason was not 
always infallible. On the other hand, the emotions or the inner 
sentiments, as true expressions of our nature and as opposed 
to the cold, selfish calculations of reason, were rather to be fol- 
lowed as the guide to right conduct. The movement of the 
latter half of the century looked toward the improvement of 
the masses of the people, as the former had resulted in the 
formation of an intellectual aristocracy. 

Rousseau was the leader of the one as Voltaire was the 
leader of the other : Voltaire a leader in the first because of 
his brilliant intellectual power and his far-reaching rational- 
ism ; Rousseau a leader in the second because of* his deep 
emotionalism and his profound sympathy for the people. 
"If it is an explanation of the popularity of Voltaire that he 
said what most were thinking, then we may say that Rousseau 
was popular because he gave the most perfect expression to 
what others were feeling." ^ The early movement had led to 
freedom of the intellect, but yet had tolerated, or preserved 
for selfish reasons, the formalism of social institutions. Since 
he had neither the ability nor the training to move with ease 
in this formal life of society when the opportunity was given 
him, Rousseau, led partly by personal feeling and partly by 
sympathy for the common lot made miserable by this indif- 
ference of the upper class, revolted most violently and pro- 
pounded in place of the old law of reason the new gospel of 

1 Willert in Acton's Cambridge History, Vol. VIII, p. 28. 



5-] 4 History of Education 

faith in nature, in the common man, and in man's ability to 
work out his own good in life. Contrasting with the majesty 
of the monarchy, the gayety and luxuriousness of the lives of 
the nobility, the brilliancy of society. La Bruyere drew a pic- 
ture of " Certain wild animals, male and female, scattered over 
the fields, black, livid, all burnt by the sun, bound to the 
earth that they dig and work with unconquerable pertinacity ; 
they have a sort of articulate voice, and when they rise 
on their feet, they show a human face, and, in fact, are 
men." Quoting this, Morley adds : "There is no reason to 
think that Voltaire ever saw this gaunt and tremendous spec- 
tacle. Rousseau was its first voice. Since him the reorgani- 
zation of the relations of men has never faded from the sight 
either of statesmen or philosophers with visions keen enough 
to admit to their eyes even what they dreaded and execrated 
in their hearts. Voltaire's task was different and preparatory. 
It was to make popular the genius and authority of reason." ^ 

But the task of the second half-century, under the leadership 
of Rousseau, was to develop a new faith in man, to work out 
a new ideal in life, to infuse a new spirit into society, and to 
reestablish a basis for religion in man's nature. When we 
take the old period and the new, each at its best, we find 
a profound difference between them. The same historian 
sums up the difference between the attitude of the natural- 
istic period and that of the period preceding the Enlighten- 
ment as follows : " Faith in a divine power, devout obedience 
to its supposed will, hope of ecstatic, unspeakable reward, 
these were the springs of the old movement. Undivicted 
love of our fellows, steadfast faith in human nature, steadfast 
search after justice, firm aspiration toward improvement, and 
generous contentment in the hope that others may reap what- 
ever reward may be, these are the springs of the new."^ 

One other aspect of this difference between the rationalistic 
and the naturalistic movements, between Voltaire and Rous- 

1 Voltaire, pp. 27-28. ^ Morley, Rousseau, Vol. I, Introd. 



Naturalistic Tendency in Education 545 

seau, was their attitude toward religion. Voltaire held that ah 
religion was an illusion to the believer and a deception by the 
priesthood. The naturalists, while they rejected both the skep- 
ticism of the ilhiviinati and the old ecclesiasticism which they 
considered to-be the superstition of orthodoxy, held and popu- 
larized a "natural religion," which included the morality of 
Christianity but excluded more or less completely the super- 
natural element. The criticism of this natural religion does 
not concern us here any more than does a criticism of the 
position of the skeptics; but it is important to note that the 
naturalists believed in religion as an essential part of human 
society because it was an essential part of human experi- 
ence. The attitude of the Revolutionary Convention is a 
just commentary on the difference between the two move- 
ments in this respect : they affirmed the belief of the French 
nation in a Supreme Being and in the immortality of the soul, 
and accepted the confession of the Savoyard Vicar (from the 
Emile, Bk. IV) as the established faith. Skepticism and 
atheism were pronounced to be aristocratic and not to be 
endured. 

The general conception of civilization held by Voltaire and 
his associates eliminated religion ; permitted the populace no 
rights ; had no sympathy with the masses ; erected a polished, 
intellectual society, preserving its identity by a cold formalism 
and its morality by a punctilious observance of stiff rules ; 
accepted reason as a guide in thought, materialism as a stand- 
ard in morality, and self-interest or rather selfishness as the 
principle of action. In this conception of society is to be 
found the animus of Rousseau's contention that civilization is 
a curse. Of this contrast Flint states : — 

"Voltaire's appreciation of civilization was likewise at once 
very sincere so far as it went, and yet very defective. He 
had a genuine enthusiasm for culture of a kind ; a keen sense 
of the worth of science, art, literature, and social refinement. 
But his idea of civilization was most defective. It excluded 



546 History of Edtt cation 

all earnest religions of faith, and included nothing highei 
than intellectual cleverness, moral respectability, and polished 
manners. It was not the idea of a civilization appropriative 
of all that is human, comprehensive of all that educates men- 
tal and spiritual life, and which, while it should refine and dis- 
cipline nature, should likewise preserve its simplicity, respect 
its freedom, and favor individual and national originality; 
but rather that of a civilization of a special and artificial type, 
such as can only be local and temporary, and as was to be 
seen in all its glory in the fashionable salons and philosophic 
circles of Paris in the Voltairian period." ^ 

In regard to education in the schools the rationalistic move- 
ment had little direct influence, though it controlled the 
private education of the upper class. The character of this 
can be judged from the ideals of life and conduct elaborated 
by Lord Chesterfield for his son. An education of worldly 
wisdom, a perfection in forms of behavior, a lack of all that 
is most serious in life, an emphasis on the importance of 
polite conduct, a higher appreciation of manners and courtli- 
ness than of virtue and seriousness, an attention to outward 
form without regard to inward reaUty, a smattering of 
knowledge of all kinds, a purely materiahstic judgment of 
affairs of life, a nature developed to decide all things in the 
cold light of reason, full command of the body, with opin- 
ions never fully revealed, — these constitute the ideals of the 
education of the rationalistic-aristocratic period. It is but a 
further formulation of the social realism of Montaigne, in 
some respects a degenerate one, though in others an advance 
upon it. The connection so often made between Rousseau 
and Montaigne is because of their relationship to the inter- 
vening rationalistic period ; the one contributed to its origin 
and the other made concrete and gave a new form to its great 
abstract principles. Yet compared with that advocated by 
the rationalists, the education of the naturahstic period is 
about as reactionary as could be constructed. 

^ Histo7-y of the Philosophy of History in France, p. 300. 



... f. 

Naturalistic Tendency i7t Education 547 

It is not in the details of the " education according to 
nature " that we are here chiefly interested ; nor in the funda- 
mental distinctions it opposes to the education of the rational- 
istic period. The main point to notice is that just as the 
great doctrines of liberation of the common man find their 
origin in the teachings of Rousseau, so also do the great 
educational doctrines of the liberation of the child. As the 
Contrat Social contains the germs of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence and of the American Constitution, so the Emile 
contains the germinal ideas of the kindergarten, of modern 
elementary school work, and of the entire modern conception 
of education. 

The extravagant form in which the doctrines are stated, 
the wild emotional vagaries of the author, his offensive per- 
sonality, his inconsistent career, his evil influence, — political, 
literary, moral, — should not blind one to the fact that from 
him we obtain our idea that education starts from the child, 
that its process is determined by the child nature, and that its . 
aim is summed up in the child's character and social relation ; 
in other words, our idea of all that has since been elaborated 
as the details of the doctrines and processes of modern 
education. 

JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU. — Essentially democratic, as 

the early phase of the Enlightenment had been essentially 
aristocratic, forming at once the culmination of the Enlighten- 
ment and the basis of nineteenth-century thought and life, 
the naturalistic movement finds both its origin and its most 
notable and influential exponent in Jean Jacques Rousseau. 
To estimate aright the ideas and purposes of this man, to 
understand the essential principles of the movement itself 
and its relation to the manifold institutional changes soon to 
be brought about, especially to gain any conception of its 
bearing on the development of educational thought, one must 
be prepared to lay aside all prejudices in the consideration of 



548 History o^ ■'^^htcation 

a character in whom, probably beyond all others, is to be 
found the greatest mixture of strength and weakness, of 
truth and falsity, of that which is attractive and that which 
is detestable. A man governed wholly by his emotions, 
possessing the highest ideals with the greatest power of 
embodying them in words, but the slightest ability to realize 
them in action, with clear insight, unbounded sympathy, Httle 
accurate knowledge and less of disciplined power of mind, he 
gave an impetus to ideas held and expressed by many others 
that has made him one of the most powerful factors in all his- 
tory. Napoleon said that without him the French Revolution 
would not have occurred ; and, while it is impossible to say 
what would or would not have happened, he certainly caused 
a more complete revolution in educational thought and prac- 
tice than any one man or group of men that we have to con- 
sider. He it was who first preached the political and social 
gospel of the common man and gave to him an education as 
a right by birth. To quote again from Morley : " It was in 
Rousseau that poUte Europe first barkened to strange voices 
and faint reverberations from out of the vague and cavernous 
shadow in which the common people move." 

Rousseau was born (171 2) at Geneva, — a city renowned 
for its great intellectual and moral vigor, and its influence in 
these respects on Europe exerted through the dominant 
Calvinism of the Protestant population of France, England, 
and Scotland. In Geneva prevailed an earnestness of moral 
life, purity of domestic relations, simplicity of social order, 
freedom of government, that were in sharp contrast with the 
luxury, the wealth, the artificiality, the immorality, the cyni- 
cism of Parisian life. It was the memory of these early 
associations, intensified by the contrast with his later Pari- 
sian associations, that undoubtedly furnished the elements 
of the ideal natural state pictured by Rousseau ; for to the 
burgesses of his native city, who later reciprocated by order- 
ing his books burned by public hangmen, Rousseau dedicated 



Naturalistic Tendency in Education 549 

the work in which this ideal is most clearly set forth, his 
Origin of Inequality among Men. His training in early- 
years was one of indulgence ; and, while he was early taught 
to- read, he devoted his early years to the unrestricted devour- 
ing of romances, — an experience which fixed in him a native 
tendency to sentimentality, even to sensuality. A few years 
of more formal education, very indifferently attended to, failed 
to make any radical change in his character thus early formed. 
At twelve we find him apprenticed to a trade, where, accord- 
ing to his own account, he learned more of deceit, idleness, 
and dishonesty than he did of craftsmanship. Four years later, 
still consulting only his emotions and the whims of sentiment, 
he became a common vagabond. But this life, continued for 
several years, had one merit, in that it strengthened both his 
love for and knowledge of nature. Converted one hungry 
day by a bottle of wine, a full meal, and the hospitality of a 
priest, whom he later makes famous as the Savoyard Vicar, 
he changed his religion and allowed this chance incident to 
shape his life for years. It is profitless from our point of 
view to follow his life in detail, except that one may see in 
the concrete Rousseau's ideal of education. Of an emotional 
rather than of a rational character, exalting natural instincts 
and desires above reason, holding that moral and religious 
ideas could not develop in early childhood, positing that more 
was to be derived from association with nature than from 
communion with books or from the intelligence of others, 
that proper development came from removing all restric- 
tions and allowing natural tendencies to have full sway, 
— this conception of education was merely the outgrowth 
of his own life. The only permanent and elevating interest 
he seemed to possess throughout this period, as well as the 
only activity in which he possessed any ability, was music. 
As performer and as composer, if not as teacher, he possessed 
considerable talent, and contributed upon his specialty many 
of the treatises for the encyclopedic publications of his 



550 History of Editcatioji 

day. When about forty, his aimless, meaningless existence 
became possessed of a great idea — an idea which gave point 
to his sentimental vaporings, to his emotional prejudices and 
beliefs; an idea that through him was to revolutionize the 
social structure of his adopted country as well as to modify 
profoundly that of many others ; an idea which when applied 
to education was to create a new epoch therein as well. In 
brief, the main idea was simple, and now commonplace 
enough. Human happiness and human welfare are the 
natural rights of every individual, not the special posses- 
sion of a favored class; legitimate sofial organization and 
education exist but to bring about the realization of this 
desideratum. To this he added as a main argument, — the 
fuse which was to explode the bomb, — science, art, govern- 
ment as then constituted, prevented this realization and 
hence were objects for destruction. 

DOCTRINE OF THE "NATURAL STATE." — In 1749, 
coming by chance across the theme for a prize essay pro- 
pounded by the Dijon Academy, — ^one of the institutions 
which during the eighteenth century did so much to make 
France famous in literature, art, and science, — Rousseau 
was seized with what he terms an inspiration. This indeed 
was one of those spontaneous convictions reached without 
any previous rational reflection, which were so influential in 
the hfe of this great exponent of the emotions and which 
were about as near an approach to definite rational processes 
as he ever reached. The theme was formulated in the ques- 
tion : " Has the restoration of the sciences contributed to 
purify or corrupt manners .? " His answer was the negative 
one elaborated in the idea of the " natural state," —an idea 
much discussed during this period and by some even given the 
same form as that now propounded by Rousseau. But, unlike 
others, Rousseau furnished in defense of this thesis an emo- 
tional fervor and a literary style that carried conviction, and 



Naturalistic Tendency in Education 551 

to him belongs the honor of securing its popular acceptance. 
Rousseau did but little more than idealize his remembrance of 
the simple Genevan life and society, together with that of his 
own aimless, emotional Hfe. As we recognize the primitive 
man to be, so certainly by his own showing was Rousseau in 
his worst moments, "lying, faithless, slanderous, thievish, inde- 
cent, cruel, cowardly, selfish." But this life had its positive 
side also; it was entirely spontaneous ; it was simple, happy, 
contented, earnest, honest — in the sense of true to life; herein 
we find later one of its chief educational bearings. Compared 
with the life which Rousseau contrasted it with, — the formal, 
false, hypocritical, superficial, unfeeling, harsh, selfish, cruel, 
and to him inhuman life of Parisian society, — this life 
according to nature had much to commend it. Much of the 
unattractiveness of its form was due to the lack of that 
sophistication so characteristic of the social life of the times 
and was more than counterbalanced by its genuineness; while 
its strength lay in its recognition of the worth of the individual 
on his own merits, in the bond of sympathy which it recognized 
as the universal solvent, in its passion for freedom and for inde- 
pendence from the. trammels of usage, tradition and tyranny. 
Rousseau had now spent several years in contact, though 
not in sympathy with, the society of culture, wealth and posi- 
tion, on the one hand and, on the other, with that circle of 
powerful intellects centered around Voltaire which controlled 
the new thought and influenced most of the political and social 
hierarchies of Europe. With neither of these societies had he 
any sympathy ; for the one principle which he honestly lived up 
to throughout his life was the democratic one, — his feeling for 
the common man, his belief in the worth of the individual. 
It was this hollow and insincere, though brilliant, witty, 
wealthy and " cultured " society that was before him when he 
produced his famous essays and those works for the following 
thirteen years ending with the Emile, which were to render 
him famous and to revolutionize society. 



552 History of Edtication 

The argument, if argument it may be called, stripped of 
all its rhetorical embellishment and wealth of illustration, 
conveys little of the forcefulness and none of the fervor of 
the original essay and the subsequent defenses of the theme. 
Herein we find the negation of the Renaissance in all of its 
phases, including the rationalistic literary enlightenment then 
reaching its culmination. This, for us, is the significance of 
these ideas and of the following which they speedily obtained. . 

The second discourse. On the Origin of Inequality of Men, 
is devoted largely to an imaginary description of the state of 
society among primitive men. Here one finds only the phys- 
ical or intellectual inequality established by nature, which 
under the natural conditions of primitive life hardly reveals 
itself and hence causes no diminution of the happiness, con- 
tentment, and welfare of man. Man is not then vicious, for 
he does not know what being good or .bad is. He has one 
primitive virtue, that of pity, which takes the place of laws, 
manners and customs. It is reflection which isolates man ; it 
is philosophy which leads one to say to a fellow-creature, 
" Perish if needs be ; I am safe and sound." Through dif- 
ference in natural talent, in environment, but, more than ali, 
through the rise of private property, those social inequaUties 
arose that have been magnified and perpetuated by political 
society. Political power is developed and organized to pro- 
tect accumulated property. Inequality, summed up in the 
distinction between the rich and poor, becomes differentiated 
into many forms. It is to perpetuate these inequalities, of 
which modern society consists, that all political power exists. 

The idea of this discourse leads to that of Rousseau's chief 
political treatise, the Social Contract, wherein the basal doc- 
trines of the French Revolution as well as of our own Declara- 
tion of Independence are laid. Government is the result of 
a " contract " among the people, by which some are given 
delegated power to rule, while the remainder of the people 
give to the governing class some service in return for services 



Nattiralistic Tendency in Education 553 

performed. Government, thus formed by agreement, can be 
dissolved when the parties no longer agree. It is to be noted 
that the conception of the " natural state " is modified in the 
Social Contract ; it is no longer the life of the savage that is 
ideal, but the life in society organized under the rule of the 
people. Such a society — where the simple tastes and wants 
of the masses shall dominate and where an aristocracy with 
its ill-gained wealth, leisure time, and selfish indulgence is 
wanting — can devote itself to the development of an ideal 
life, wherein the " natural man " is not hampered, freedom 
is not lost, and the arts and sciences of polite society are 
undeveloped. 

With the detailed argument of these Discourses, full of 
error as they are, we are not here concerned, but primarily 
with an exposition of their fundamental ideas and with their 
influence on educational thought. 

THE "EMILE" AND EDUCATION ACCORDING TO NA- 
TURE. — In this long tale, part novel, part didactic exposi- 
tion, Rousseau relates the proper education of the youth by 
' showing the training of the child taken from his parents and 
the schools, isolated from society, and put into the hands of 
11 ideal tutor, who brings him up in contact with nature's 
'c.-duties and nature's wonders. 

T'hreefold Meaning of Nature in the "Emile." — Though 
'■' -ri jcation according to nature " is given a wider meaning, 
t-i -C doctrine of the natural state, as previously defined, here 
-eceives one of its fullest expositions and its most thorough 
olication. In the opening sentence of the work the fun- 
amental principle is stated : " Everything is good as it comes 
from the hand of the author of nature ; but everything degen- 
erates in the hands of man." We receive our education from 
these sources ; from nature, from man, from things. When the 
training received from these three teachers is not harmonized, 
the individual is badly educated. " He in whom they all 



554 History of Education 

coincide and tend to the same end, he alone may be said tc 
move toward his destiny and to live consistently ; he alone 
is well educated." Over two of these man has considerable 
control ; over the third, nature, — " the internal development 
of our faculties," — he has none. Harmony in education is 
obtained by subordinating the education of man and of things 
to that of nature. 

Nature is a habit, education is nothing but a habit. But 
habit is used in two senses. Primary dispositions, unaltered 
by enlightenment, by sophistication, or by suggestion from 
others constitute nature. Habit in this sense is to be 
followed ; but habit in its usual significance indicates that 
which is acquired by direct imitation of other human beings, 
by suggestion, or by obedience to command. Concerning 
this Rousseau later says : " The only habit which the child 
should be allowed to form is to contract no habit whatever." 
As a subordinate connotation throughout the treatise, educa- 
tion according to nature thus indicates that the instinctive 
judgments, primitive emotions, natural instincts, "first impres- 
sions," are more trustworthy as a basis for action than al) the 
reflection, the caution, the experience that comes from asso- 
ciation with others. " Before this alteration (by habits of 
thought and judgment acquired from others) these disposi . 
tions are what I call our nature." 

The fundamental meaning of "the natural state" in the 
Entile is its social one. This, however, is not, as con.^ \ ; 
in the Discourses, that the state of primitive man is si : > 
to all higher forms of culture. But as in the Social Ci ' - ■ 
he shows how a state of high culture can be based i;i ou a 
truer political principle and thus a nobler type of sor rii IJfe 
than that of the eighteenth century evolved ; so in the r.;;. ?' 
he propounds an education, based not on the forms of society, 
the meaningless traditions of the school and a misconception 
or entire ignorance of childhood, but on a knowledge of the 
true nature of man. As in the Social Contract he taught that 



Naturalistic Tendency in Education 555 

the only rights of man, natural rights, were those found in the 
laws of his own nature, so, according to the Entile, education 
is to be guided by these same laws. The '^natural man" is 
not the savage man, but man governed and directed by the 
laws of his own nature. Such laws, as are the laws of any 
other portion of nature, are discoverable through investigation. 
Most criticisms of Rousseau (and very many of these may be 
valid) are based upon the fact that Rousseau himself, like 
most others, was ignorant of the real facts, certainly of the 
laws, of human nature, and that, despite the lack of actual 
knowledge, he was given to dogmatizing. 

This being, according to Rousseau, the primary meaning 
of education according to nature, an opposition to society 
follows as a corollary. " We must choose between making 
a man and a citizen, for we cannot make both at once." 
But it must be understood that in a citizen and in society he 
had primarily in mind the civilization of the eighteenth cen- 
tury. In the Social Contract he had shown how a high state 
of culture, one infinitely preferable to the existing one, could 
be developed on a different socia^ principle, that of individ- 
ual choice, instead of that of arbitrary authority. Yet much 
in the situation is of general significance and is but a new 
"orm of the old problem of individual rights and social wel- 
tc ^e. The same individualistic solution is given by Rousseau 
as -/as given by the Sophists and by the early Renaissance 
le- ,. ers. While Rousseau often suggests a rather vague doc- 
trme of the primacy of self-love and love of goodness among 
human motives, no harmonization of this conflict is sought 
or found as it was by the Greek philosophers or the humanists 
of the reform period. As with the rationalism of the early 
eighteenth century, so with Rousseau, criticism is negative 
and destructive, with little of the constructive element in it. 
The positive interpretation is to be found in the following 
period : philosophically, with Kant and Hegel ; educationally, 
with Herbart and Froebel. 



556 History of Education 

" The natural man is complete in himself ; he is the numer- 
ical unit, the absolute man who is related only to himself or 
his fellow-man. Civilized man is but a fractional unit, which 
is dependent on its denominator, and whose value consists in 
its relation to the whole, which is the social organization." 
Thus does Rousseau hold exactly the reverse of the thought 
of the present, which conceives the natural man to be the 
fraction, which finds completion as the social man as a unit 
in the greater unity of the whole. But this misanthrope, who 
at the same time was one of the greatest . lovers of the com- 
mon man and who had profound confidence in human nature, 
held that "the breath of man is fatal to his fellows." This 
is one of the paradoxes no less striking in his life than in his 
writings. Education for social institutions, for custom, — as 
these dominated in Rousseau's period of extreme artificiality, 

— he held to be mere slavery ; by it the true nature of the 
child is neglected and true happiness overlooked. " The 
whole sum of human wisdom," he says, " consists in servile 
prejudices; our customs are nothing more than subjection, 
worry, and restraint. CiviHzed man is, born, lives, and dies 
in a state of slavery ; at his birth, he is sewn up in swaddling 
clothes, at his death, he is nailed in a coffin ; so long as he 
preserves the human form he is fettered by different institu- 
tions." 

Education, according to nature, had a third meaning in the 
Emile. This results, when the author elevates his chief means, 
contact with the phenomena of nature, into an end in itself. 
The mal-education which comes from man is to be counter- 
acted by contact, fearless and intimate, with subhuman nature, 

— with animals, with plants, with physical forces of all kinds. 
Rousseau was a " lover of nature," and through his teachings 
began a movement of finer and fuller appreciation of nature, 
which found its expression in a wide school of literature both 
on the Continent and in England. Rousseau's conception, 
however, based upon a wholly misanthropic view of the life 



Naturalistic Tendency in Education 557 

of man in society, was not quite so genial, since it led to com- 
plete isolation from society and to the preference for the life 
of the recluse. Both morally and physically he held that 
"Cities are the graves of the human species." 

When applied to education this threefold view concerning 
the " doctrine of the natural state " resulted in a number of 
corollaries which were revolutionary. 

• Negative Education. — The prevaihng conception of human 
nature and especially of child nature, reenforced by both 
educational and religious teachings, was diametrically opposed 
to that of Rousseau. Human nature was considered essen- 
tially bad ; the purpose of religious training as well as of edu- 
cation in general was to eradicate the original nature and to 
replace it by one shaped under man's direction. Rousseau 
opposed this idea with the following principle : " The first 
education then should be purely negative. It consists, not 
in teaching the principles of virtue or truth, but in guarding 
the heart against vice and the mind against error." 

With him the entire education of the child was to come 
from the free development of his )wn nature, his own 
powers, his own natural inclinations. His will was not to be 
thwarted. 

" Experience or want of power ought alone to supply the 
place of law in regard to your pupil. Never let him have 
anything because he demands it, but because he needs it. 
Let him not know what obedience is when he acts ; nor what 
authority is when others act for him. Let him be sensible of 
his liberty, alike in his own action and in yours. Is it not 
very extraordin*ary that the persons concerned in the educa- 
tion of children should never have devised any other instru- 
ments for managing them but jealousy, envy, vanity, 
greediness, and fear, passions all of a most dangerous tend 
ency, the quickest to ferment and the most proper for 
corrupting the soul, even before the body is formed t At 
every crude lesson which you want to drive into their heads, 
you plant a vice in the depths of their heart. Some foolish 
teachers think it a great thing, that, to the end that they may 



558 History of Education 

learn the nature of virtue, they thus should become vicious; 
and then they tell us, with grave countenance, that his nature 
is such. Yes, truly, as it was spoiled by you. All instruments 
have been tried but one, the only one which can succeed, — 
well-regulated liberty." 

By this negative education, expounded in most startling 
paradoxes, Rousseau did not maintain that there should be no 
education at all ; but that there should be one very differ- 
ent in kind from the accepted educational practices. 
In one of his letters in defense of the j&w/ZZg' against the many 
attacks made upon it, the author wrote : " I call a positive 
education one that tends to form the mind prematurely, and 
to instruct the child in the duties that belong to a man. I 
call a negative education one that tends to perfect the organs 
that are the instruments of knowledge before giving this 
knowledge directly ; and that endeavors to prepare the way 
for reason by the proper exercise of the senses. A negative 
education does not mean a time of idleness ; far from it. It 
does not give virtue, it protects from vice ; it does not in- 
culcate truth, it prot' cts from error. It disposes the child 
to take the path that will lead him to truth, when he has 
reached the age to understand it ; and to goodness, when he 
has acquired the faculty of recognizing and loving it." 

Interpretation of Negative Education. — This doctrine ap- 
plied to physical education dem'anded the greatest freedom 
for the child, commended the most simple diet and clothing, 
condemned all medical treatment, and insisted upon a life in 
the country and in the open air. When applied to the intel- 
lectual training of the child it taught that little attention 
should be given to the child's intellectual training until after 
the age of twelve. "Childhood is the sleep of reason." 
Therefore the child should not be presumed to reason — even 
to read or work during this period. In its moral application 
this doctrine of negative education led to the formation of an 
hypothesis that since has had much influence and some able 



Naturalistic Tendency in Education 559 

interpreters, notably Herbert Spencer. This is the doctrine 
of moral training by natural consequences : allow the child 
to suffer the natural results of his own acts without the inter- 
vention of human beings to protect or to punish. As 
interpreted by Rousseau this meant, further, that the edu- 
cator might correct the child so long as he could make it 
appear to the child that the punishment came through natural 
consequences and that human interference had nothing to do 
with it. If the child is slow in dressing for a walk, leave him 
at home ; if he breaks a window, let him sit in the cold ; if he 
disobeys and gets wet, let him have a cold and be compelled 
to remain indoors ; if he overeats, let him be sick ; if he is 
indolent and will not perform tasks assigned, let him go with- 
out food that would come as a result. In fact, let him suffer 
the natural results of the contravention of any laws of nature 
or of his own being ; so far as concerns opposition from indi- 
viduals, he should be opposed by no will of man, by no human 
authority. 

While this doctrine has some obvious advantages and con- 
tains much truth, there are limitations upon its applicability 
that render it entirely unsatisfactory as a sole guide. While 
there iS no room for discussion, a few of these may at least 
be mentioned. The value of such a principle depends alto- 
gether upon the pupil's connecting cause and effect ; but 
Rousseau has already taught that, during the period wherein 
this doctrine is to be most thoroughly applied, the child does 
not reason. Therefore he would be unable, at all, to receive 
any moral instruction from such a procedure. 

Aside from this reaction upon one's self, it is a large 
question whether the effects upon one's own physical 
being or individual welfare are the only ones to be con- 
sidered. The results upon the feelings and the welfare of 
others are to be considered and cannot be left for develop- 
ment merely to natural love of goodness. Further, if all 
authority is to be thrown aside, is there no profit in the 



560 History of Education 

experience of others ? Rousseau thought, as that experience 
was embodied in literature, history, customs, institutions, 
there was little. To those who deny all legitimacy to author- 
ity, there is no answer to be made, for the individualism of 
Rousseau is sufficient ; but in this position Rousseau himself 
was far from consistent. 

Further, such a training would lead to the judgment of 
all acts from consequences rather than from motives, and to 
the development of prudence rather than of morality. Even 
granting that this were not true, it is difficult to see how 
such an education would ever develop positive moral charac- 
ter. Positive virtues could hardly be produced through the 
avoidance of non-pleasurable results to one's self alone, 
especially when the unreflective character of childhood is 
taken into consideration. 

The practical objection that this method of training would 
lead to irreparable injury before the child could be educated 
need not be considered. 

While these general principles of negative education under- 
lie all education, Rousseau held that each phase of education, 
physical, intellectual, and moral, had an appropriate stage. 
The old attitude toward education — that it was a procedure 
uniform in character throughout and that the child was to be 
treated and the child mind to be trained just as the adult 
would be — Rousseau rejected ; but he went to the other 
extreme and held that development of the child was through 
sharply defined periods which had little or no connection 
with each other and that each of these periods possessed an 
education of its own. 

Education from One to Five. — Devoted largely to the 
statement of general principles, previously summarized, this 
first book of the Entile, treating of the education of the child 
from one to five, adds little of the concrete. The father is the 
natural teacher, as the mother is the natural nurse. By these 
two is to be given the early training, for the most part physi- 



Naturalistic Tendency in Education 561 

cal. The substance of the education of this first period is 
the opposition to the customary restrictions of swaddling 
clothes, of restraints on freedom, and of indoor hfe ; oppo- 
sition to the thwarting of natural inclinations and desires, 
and of punishment for acts before the child can have any 
conception of wrong or of why punishment is given. It 
includes extravagant praise of life in the country, of freedom, 
of sports and games, and of exercise. " The weaker the 
body, the more it commands ; the stronger it is, the better it 
obeys. All the sensual passions find lodgment in effeminate 
bodies." "All wickedness comes from weakness. A child 
is bad only because he is weak ; make him strong and he will 
be good. He who can do everything does nothing bad." 
These are the principles, however defective, that underlie all 
this earlier training. Little attention is to be paid to his in- 
tellectual and moral development. Effort should be made, 
even, to restrict his vocabulary. " It is a great disadvantage 
for him to have more words than ideas, and to know how to 
say more things than he can think." 

Education from Five to Twelve. --This, "the most critical 
period of human life," is to be controlled by the two prin- 
ciples already elaborated, that education should be negative 
and that moral training should be by natural consequences. 
It is in his description of the proper education of the child 
during this period that Rousseau manifests most clearly his 
hostility to the type of education then prevalent. Instead of 
attempting, as is ordinarily done, to give the child all sorts 
of ideas, nothing at all should be done toward molding or 
forcing his mind. Childhood is for its own sake. " Nature 
desires that children should be children before they are 
men." The child need not be taught to read, though prob- 
ably he will pick this up on his own accord. He will hardly 
know what a book is. " Exercise the body, the organs, the 
senses and powers, but keep the soul lying fallow as long as 
you can," is his advice. While the child knows nothing of 
20 



562 History of Education 

books and of that which passes for knowledge, **on the other 
hand he judges, foresees, reasons on everything which is 
directly related to him ; " for this education is to be largely 
a training of the senses, such as can be gained by constant 
life with the forces and phenomena of nature. He measures, 
weighs, counts, compares, draws conclusions, tests inferences, 
discovers principles. 

Education from Twelve to Fifteen. — This is the one period 
in life in which the strength of the individual is greater than 
his needs. As intellectual training has for its general result 
the multiplication of wants without any corresponding devel- 
opment of power adequate to meet those needs, this is the 
one period in life in which greatest stress can be laid upon 
the acquisition of knowledge. What will the child do with 
this surplus of power and energy .'' 

" He will endeavor to employ it in tasks which may profit 
him when the occasion comes ; he will project into the future, 
so to speak, that which is superfluous for the time being. The 
robust child will make provisions for the feeble man ; but he 
will place these stores neither in coffers which can be stolen 
from him, nor in barns which are not his own. In order that 
he may really appropriate his acquisitions to himself, it is in 
his arms, in his head, and in himself, that he will lodge them. 
This, then, is the period of labor, of instruction, and of study ; 
and observe, it is not I who have arbitrarily made this choice, 
but it is nature herself who indicates it." 

But, after all, there are comparatively few things to be 
known that are of value. Curiosity — that ardor for knowl- 
edge which comes from natural desires, the innate desire for 
well being, not the ardor for knowledge that is founded on 
the desire to be considered wise — is the sole motive and the 
sole guide. The test of all is its practical use. " Let us then 
reject from our primary studies those branches of knowledge 
for which man has not a natural taste, and let us limit our- 
selves to those which instinct leads us to pursue," is his state- 



Naturalistic Tendency in Education 563 

ment of a principle far more widely accepted in this day than 
in his own. There is little of " book knowledge " even in this 
period. Robinson Crusoe, a study of " life according to nature," 
of self-help, of the uselessness of most knowledge and of all so- 
cial forms, is the chief book recommended. Knowledge is to 
be clearly distinguished from truth and the nscfitl from both. 

"Since all our errors come from our judgment, it is clear 
that if we never needed to judge we should have no need to 
learn ; we should never be in a situation to deceive ourselves ; 
we should be happier in our ignorance than we could be with 
our knowledge. Who denies that scholars know a thousand 
true things which the ignorant will never know } Are scholars 
nearer the truth on this account .'' Quite the contrary : they 
depart from truth as they advance ; because the vanity of judg- 
ing, ever making greater progress than knowledge, each truth 
which they learn brings with it a hundred false judgments. 
It is absolutely certain that the learned societies of Europe 
are but so many public schools of falsehood ; and very surely 
there are more errors in the Academy of Sciences than in the 
whole tribe of Hurons." 

Among other things, Emile has learned a trade, "less for 
the sake of knowing the trade than for overcoming the preju- 
dices which despise it." In his long discussions of the im- 
portance of the manual and industrial activities in education, 
Rousseau emphasizes many of the social advantages, without 
comprehending at all the psychological advantages that are so 
emphasized at present. At the end of this period " Emile is 
industrious, temperate, patient, firm, and full of courage. . . . 
He has little knowledge, but what he has is really his own ; 
he knows nothing by halves. . . . Do you think that a child 
who has thus reached his fifteenth year has lost the years 
preceding } " 

Education from Fifteen to Twenty. — Hitherto Emile's body, 
senses, and brain have been formed ; it is now time that his 
heart should be shaped. Hitherto the child has been educated 
solely for himself and by himself ; self-love has been the con- 



564 History of Education 

trolling motive ; self-perfection, self-development, the ultimate 
end. Now the youth is to be educated for life with others 
and is to be educated in social relationships. Love for others 
becomes the controlling motive ; emotional development, moral 
perfection the goal. 

Rousseau first called attention to the transcendent impor- 
tance of the period of adolescence in education. " At this 
stage the ordinary course of education ends ; but strictly 
speaking here one's should begin." Up to this time Emile 
has not been brought, save indirectly, into contact with 
others ; he has not had to adapt himself to the conduct 
and interests of others ; he has known no motives save 
those of self-interest and curiosity. He has probably never, 
even heard the name of God. Now his education is to be 
strictly moral and religious. Previous attachments for per- 
sons have been merely the result of habitual association ; now 
they are based on unity in sympathy and upon emotional 
experience. The whole character of his education changes. 
" The study proper for man is that of his relations. While 
he knows only his physical existence, he should solely study 
his relations to things ; this is the employment of his child- 
hood. When he begins to feel his moral existence, he ought 
then to inquire after his relations to mankind; for this is the 
proper occupation of his whole life, beginning from the period 
which we have now reached." 

Self-love, in which are latent both good and evil, is now to 
be turned irrevocably toward the good. The basis of all this 
is the emotional life. " From the first movements of the 
heart, arise the first utterances of the conscience ; and, from 
the first feehngs of love and hate, spring the first notions of 
good and evil." As this training was to be secured in the 
earlier period by the preservation of his native modesty 
through the negative training, so now, not through precept, 
but through contact with men, through the example of his 
tutor, through the study of history, is this development to 



Naturalistic Teiidency in Educatio7t 565 

be secured. " I do not grow weary of repeating that all the 
lessons of young men should be given in action rather than 
in words. Let, them learn nothing in books that can be 
taught them by experience." And yet Rousseau was far 
from preaching the dangerous doctrine that one should learn 
to avoid evil through experience of its consequences. " There 
is no ethical knowledge which cannot be acquired through 
the experience of others or through one's own. In case the 
experience is dangerous, instead of making it ourselves, we 
draw the lesson from history. When the trial is without con- 
sequences, it is well for the young man to remain exposed 
to it." Thus, Emile is taught not only to shun evil, but to 
do good. Especially the poor and the oppressed call for his 
sympathy and his assistance. While he is firm in the asser- 
tion of his own rights, and is quick to the defense and pro- 
tection of others, he is an exponent of the virtues of peace. 
" The spirit of peace is the effect of his education." 

In a similar way he receives his religious education. " At 
the age of fifteen, he did not know that he had a soul, and 
perhaps at eighteen it is not yet time for him to be informed 
of it ; for i|^ he learns it too soon, he runs the risk of never 
knowing it." This last clause contains the underlying prin- 
ciple of his teaching concerning religious education. Other- 
wise, the religious ideas the child gets are mere forms, verbal 
imitations, worthless so far as real experience is concerned. 
Rousseau's development of the idea of a natural religion — 
the confession of the Savoyard Vicar — occupies a large por- 
tion of his work. While this is the portion of the treatise 
that caused the book to be burned by public executioner and 
the author to be expelled from Paris, we can devote no atten- 
tion to it here, since it is aside from our main interest. 

The Education of Women is treated in the fifth and last 
book. Though a prolonged treatise, it is of but little inter- 
est here, since it does not elucidate at all Rousseau's main 
principle. In fact, since Sophia's entire education is to be 



566 History of Education 

determined by her future career as the Hfe companion of 
Emile, Rousseau violates his fundamental idea, that each 
individual is to be educated for himself and guided by the 
needs and rights of his own personality. The animus of the 
entire argument is clearly revealed in this one sentence of 
condemnation of the prevailing literary education : " A woman 
of culture is the plague of her husband, her children, her 
family, her servants, — everybody." 

SOME PERMANENT RESULTS OF ROUSSEAU'S IN- 
FLUENCE. The Education of Natural Interests vs. the Educa- 
tion of Artificial Effort. — That education is a natural, not an 
artificial process ; that it is a development from within, not an 
accretion from without ; that it comes through the workings 
of natural instincts and interests and not through response 
to external force ; that it is an expansion of natural powers, 
not an acquisition of information ; that it is life itself, not a 
preparation for a future state remote in interests and charac- 
teristics from the life of childhood, — these ideas constitute 
the fundamental teaching of Rousseau. The great variety 
of forms which these ideas have been given during the nine- 
teenth century, even by many who repudiate the doctrines 
and influences of the " great leveler," are, after all, but new 
versions of the truth originally proclaimed in somewhat exag- 
gerated form by Rousseau. 

The old conception of education aimed to remake the 
nature of the child by forcing upon him the traditional or 
customary way of thinking, of doing, and even of emotional 
reaction; to substitute for the instinctive or "natural" reac- 
tion of the child those artificial reactions developed through 
many generations of religious, intellectual, and social formal- 
ism. Human affections were evil, and hence the heart was 
to be separated from the objects of natural desire. Human 
senses were untrustworthy, and hence could not be made 
the basis of knowledge or of instruction. Human inclinations 



Naturalistic Tendency in Education 567 

and instincts, springing from a nature depraved in its es- 
sence, were toward the evil and were to be eradicated. 
Natural interests, as expressions of the nature which both 
education and religion sought to repress and make over, 
were to be shunned in all educational processes. To the 
extent that an activity or task was difficult to perform intel- 
lectually and was distasteful emotionally, to this extent it 
possessed educational value. The first step in the moral 
education was to "break the will of the child," which in its 
perverseness but represented the evil of human nature. 
This was to be followed in his social and moral education 
by the constant effort to mold the child into the artificial 
forms of conduct, wherein a real and natural motive was hid- 
den in formal behavior satisfactory to the judgment of the 
adult, even though it might conceal a motive contradictory 
to the external expression. 

Religious, philosophical, psychological, social, educational 
beliefs and practices, coincided in this attitude toward the 
child. 

Not only did the religious and philosophical view reject 
an education founded on the training of the senses, the use 
of the imagination and the guidance of natural interests and 
instincts, but, as has been seen in the previous chapter, the 
dominant psychological views implied the same attitude. 
The mind as a bundle of faculties was to be developed by 
exercising these various powers upon appropriate tasks 
whose value consisted in the difficulties they offered. These 
faculties were considered to have no necessary connection 
with one another, hence these disciplines were separate and 
distinct things ; though some faculties were higher than 
others. The highest was the reasoning power to be devel- 
oped by appropriate discipline in mathematics, logical dispu- 
tations, and the languages ; but the faculty upon which all 
the others depended, and upon the successful development 
of which depended the success of the education, was the 



568 History of Education 

memory. Discipline of the memory then took precedence 
above all other exercises. The best training for the memory 
was afforded by the mastery of material which had no inher- 
ent interest for the child. 

The social ideals of the time favored this same view. The 
child was considered but a miniature adult — of no value 
and of no rights until he could mimic the way of the adult. 
In this most artificial of all ages, in dress, in manners, in 
deportment, in pleasures, the child was molded on the pat- 
tern of his seniors, with the results that child life was almost 
eliminated from the upper classes. Previous to the Rousseau 
period, the child as he appeared in literature was merely the 
adult viewed through the wrong end of the telescope. He 
spoke as an adult, thought as an adult, acted as an adult. 
Educationally he studied the same subjects as the adult, — 
preeminently the languages ; approached them from the 
same logical point of view, through formal grammar ; mas- 
tered them through sheer effort of memory ; made the same 
formal use of them, in the same artificially organized life. 

All the subsidiary precepts of Rousseau were but concrete 
applications of his one general protest against this entire 
conception of education. " Take the reverse of the accepted 
practice, and you will almost always do right," he advised. 
Hence he reiterated in a variety of forms the thought that, 
" Whatever may happen, abandon everything rather than 
have his [the child's] tasks become irksome ; for how much 
he learns is of no account, but only that he does nothing 
against his will." 

Thus in Rousseau is found the negation of the conception 
of education of the Renaissance and of all of its subsequent 
development. All of these had considered education to be 
the making over of the child in the hand of man through the 
use of literature, religion and similar means, into a being 
different from the natural being, into one possessing knowl- 
edge valued by his fellows, ways of acting approved through 



NatuT-alistic Tendency in Education 569 

social institutions, ways of reacting emotionally approved by 
the current religion and morality. To such an artificial pro- 
duct, Rousseau opposed the human being educated through 
contact with nature, guided by his own natural interests and 
determined by his own inherent capacities and tendencies. 
In all the preceding period the educated man was the learned 
man, the man possessed of social culture ; to Rousseau the 
educated man was the well-developed man. 

The dominant views considered the value of any particular 
training to lie in the effort necessary to overcome difficulties. 
Rousseau conceived it to be in the interest stimulated in the 
child. This confl^ict between the education of effort and the 
education of interest instituted by Rousseau continues until 
the present time. The conflict between the elective and the 
prescribed course in college, between the disciplinary studies 
and the interest or content studies in the elementary grades, 
are aspects of the same struggle. The reconciliation in 
theory and the embodiment in practice are the tasks of the 
present. 

The fundamental truth of the position that he emphasized, 
and that subsequent experience has striven to realize 
in practice, is that all educative efforts must start from 
the instinctive tendencies. The effort to thwart them, to 
stifle them, to eradicate them instead of to modify or reorgan- 
ize them is the great error of educators. The reaction of 
the child against unnatural treatment often results in produc- 
ing a type of character and a disposition which is then often 
considered inherently evil. " Their first language, you say, 
is a tear. I can well believe it. From the moment of their 
birth, you cross their desires ; the first gifts they receive from 
you are chains ; the first attentions they experience are 
torments." 

The Conception of Education as a Process — as the process 
of living — follows as a corollary from the preceding. Being 
a process it lasts throughout life, or at least from birth to adult 



570 History of Education 

life, and finds its meaning for any particular stage, not in a 
future state, but in the process itself : — 

" What must we think," he asks, " of that barbarous educa- 
tion, which sacrifices the present to the uncertain future, 
which loads a child with chains of every sort, and begins by 
making him miserable in order to prepare for him, long in 
advance, some pretended happiness which it is probable he 
will never enjoy ? Were I even to assume that education to 
be reasonable in its object, how could we witness, without 
indignation, these poor unfortunates, subject, like galley 
slaves, to never-ending toil, without any assurance that such 
sacrifice will ever be useful to them ? The age of mirth is 
passed in the midst of tears, chastisements, threats, and 
slavery." 

Education is no longer a procedure, — artificial, harsh, 
unsympathetic, repressive of all natural inchnations, — by 
which the child as a little man is made into a big man through 
the hands of the teacher. But, through allowing natural forces 
to have their way, it is the process of development into an 
enjoyable, rational, harmoniously balanced, useful, and hence 
natural life. The end is reached, not with adult hfe, but with 
each succeeding day whenever life has its natural activities, 
its appropriate duties, and its corresponding satisfactions. 
Later Rousseau says : " A child knows that he is to become 
a man, and all the ideas which he can have of man's estate 
are occasions of instruction to him ; but of the ideas of that 
state which are not within his comprehension, he ought to 
remain in absolute ignorance. My whole book is but a con- 
tinual proof of this principle of education." 

A Simplification of the Educational Process follows. If 
education as an artificial procedure, as a making over of the 
child at the hands of man on the model conventionalized by 
society, is done away with, the highly elaborated artificial 
methods of instruction have no further use. 

" Let us transform our sensations into ideas, but let us not 
jump abruptly from sensible objects to intellectual objects ; 



Nattiralistic Tendency in Education 571 

for it is through the first that we are to reach the second. In 
the first movement of the mind, let the senses always be the 
guides ; let there be no books but the world and no other 
instruction than facts. The child who reads does not think, 
— he merely reads ; he is not receiving instruction but 
learning words." 

The latter criticism is as pertinent in regard to much of 
school work now as in the days of Rousseau. Geography is 
to be learned in the woods, fields, and hills, by the observa- 
tion of the position of the sun and the earth, by the study of 
the stream, the rain, and the changes of temperature; 
astronomy by the study of the heavenly bodies ; botany by 
the study of plants ; the necessary facts and fundamental 
principles of physics and chemistry by observation and ex- 
perimentation ; mathematics as it is needed in these other 
activities and in economic relations ; history only through 
reading. Geography, history, and all subjects are to begin 
at home; only that which can be thoroughly comprehended 
should be attempted, and only that which is mastered should 
be passed over. " In general, never substitute the sign for 
the thing itself, save when it is impossible to show the thing ; 
for the sign absorbs the attention of the child and makes 
him forget the thing represented." Most widely heralded 
educational discoveries or reforms of the present are but 
restatements or other attempts at realizing these principles 
formulated by Rousseau. 

The Child the Positive Factor in Education. — To John Locke 
belongs the honor of writing the first book on education that 
deals primarily with the child ; but to Rousseau belongs the 
honor of deriving his educational theories from the nature 
of the child. It may be admitted that Rousseau had little 
actual knowledge of child life and child nature and that his 
sympathy for children was pure sentimentalism, which was 
never converted into actual practice ; but it is nevertheless 
true that here first education finds its purpose, its process, 



572 History of Education 

and its means wholly within the child life and the child ex- 
perience. An appropriate development of childhood is the 
purpose of each particular stage of education ; the child's 
nature and the child's growth are to determine the process ; 
the child's experience is to furnish the means. All of the 
pregnant reforms of Pestalozzi, of Herbart, of Froebel, and 
of the multitude of other reformers of lesser influence thus 
find their origin in the teachings of Rousseau. 

In a similar way sympathy with childhood is emphasized 
as the qualification for all educational work. " O men, be 
humane ; it is your foremost duty. . . . Love childhood ; 
encourage its sports, its pleasures, its amiable instincts," ex- 
claims the man who forgot much of his own precepts in his 
own practice. Made theory by Rousseau, made practice by 
Pestalozzi, sympathy with the child, intellectually, morally, 
personally, has come to be recognized as an essential in the 
educative process. 

The Foundation of the Nineteenth-Century Educational 
Development. — Finally, it is to be noted that in Rousseau's 
teachings, notwithstanding their extravagance, is to be found 
the truth upon which all educational development of the 
nineteenth century is based. Rousseau was the prophet de- 
nouncing the evil of the old ; foretelling, yet seeing vaguely 
and in distorted outline, the vision of the new. He became 
the inspiration of those educational reformers who reduced 
his vagaries to practicable procedure. He was the forerunner 
of many who, all unconscious of their indebtedness to the 
despised revolutionist, have followed in the trails he blazed 
through the forest, until now they have become the bro§^ 
highway of common travel. The three interpretations which 
Rousseau gave to his doctrine of nature mark out the lines 
of educational development during the nineteenth century. 

As nature to Rousseau meant the native instincts, ten- 
dencies, capacities of the human being as opposed to those 
acquired through association with his fellows, he demanded 



Naturalistic Tendency in Education 573 

an education which was the unhampered development of 
these native powers or capacities. Hence the conscious 
process of instruction must be based upon a study of this 
native equipment, these natural instincts and interests, and 
the resulting activities. There grew out from this, especially 
in connection with the work of Pestalozzi, Herbart, and 
Froebel, the most important and most fruitful development 
in the whole history of education. The fundamental idea of 
this tendency in educational thought derived from Rousseau 
is that education is a natural process, starting from natural 
instincts and tendencies to action, guided by principles de- 
rived from the study of the child mind in development and 
the adult mind in its functionings. Thus from Rousseau 
comes the psychological tendency in education. 

In a similar way Rousseau's teaching that the educational 
material should be the facts and phenomena of nature, that 
it should consist chiefly in an inquiry into nature's laws, and 
should be through an intimate, fearless, and constant associa- 
tion with nature rather than man, is the basis for the scien- 
tific tendency in modern education. This is not to say that 
Rousseau's personal or literary influence is responsible for 
the development of science and of scientific education during 
the nineteenth century, but that his teachings did lay an edu- 
cational basis for this tendency and did exert a very material 
influence in furthering it. 

Finally, in Rousseau's teaching that education should aim 
to develop the virtues of the primitive man, or at least what 
he considered to be his virtues, that it should prepare the 
individual to live in a society wherein each should contribute 
by his own labor to his own support, should be bound by 
sympathy to all his fellow-men and by benevolence to all that 
needed his aid, he laid the foundation for, or at least influ- 
enced the development of, the sociological tendency in educa- 
tion. In his individualism he clearly emphasized the idea of 
a social education of a new type. In his emphasis on the 



574 History of Education 

learning of a trade or occupation as a component part of edu- 
cation, in his emphasis on certain fundamental social virtues, 
in his rejection of the formal education of the times fostered 
by and fostering in turn the dominant aristocratic classes of 
his day, in his emphasis upon the emotional and moral as 
opposed to the intellectual aspect of education, he introduced 
some of the tendencies that have come to be incorporated, 
with others already at work in his own times, into the socio- 
logical conception of education. 

This threefold influence of Rousseau on education and the 
actual work of the school can be illustrated by the parallel 
influence which* he exerted upon literature. This influence 
upon literature was more immediate and direct, but not any 
more real or profound than that on schools. From Rousseau 
came the great movement in romanticism of the later eight- 
eenth and early nineteenth century. The combination of 
the heroic in action, the dominance of the passions, the glori- 
fication of the sentimental, find here an exposition little less 
extreme than the more brutal and more frank realism of the 
earlier period. Attention is turned from personal adventures 
and social intrigues to the analysis of passions and the 
descriptions of inner conflicts. The romantic movement in 
literature is no less a development from Rousseau than the 
psychological movement in education. 

In a similar way Rousseau first made the element of the 
natural environment a fundamental element in the story of 
human emotions. With him began the tendency to incor- 
porate into the novel the detailed pictures of natural scenery 
that should form an appropriate setting for the drama of 
human life wrought out on the stage of the printed page. 
The feeling for the beautiful in nature found in him one of 
its most brilliant and most devoted exponents. In Hterature, 
he was the first to revel in the charm of the country and 
to seek to analyze the influence upon character, of nature, of 
the mountains, and of the lakes. Thus his influence in edu- 



Naturalistic Tendency i^i Education 575 

cation toward the use of natural phenomena as the subject- 
matter and the close contact with nature rather than with 
books as the method, finds a further parallel in his literary 
influence. 

One further parallel presents itself. Though here Rous- 
seau cannot be said to be an initiator, but rather an imitator 
of the prevailing English school, he transferred the interest 
in Hterature from the palace to the hovel, from the lord and 
lady to the commonplace mortal. Minute descriptions of 
the life of the common people and of life in the country, 
more typical of realism than of romanticism, crowd his one 
great novel, — the Nouvelle Helo'ise, — as well as his Confes- 
sions. Bourgeois morality is exalted ; commonplace people 
occupy the stage hitherto reserved for the quality ; the social 
problems of the masses permit the occasion for the plot, for 
description and for moralizing. What might be termed a 
sociological tendency in literature, corresponding to the one 
in education and illustrative of one great aspect of Rousseau's 
" doctrine of the natural state," here receives a tremendous 
impetus. 

EFFECT UPON SCHOOLS. — When inquiry is made for 
the influence of the " naturalistic " tendency on schools, the 
answer is not immediately forthcoming. So profound a 
movement does not have its effect immediately. The an- 
swer to this inquiry is secured only when the results of 
these later tendencies, especially of the psychological, are 
discovered. Immediately the effects were slight; ultimately 
they were so general as to defy measurement. 

In France, where the influence of Rousseau on thought and 
sentiment was most profound, the old regime was so thor- 
oughly intrenched in the social organization that change 
could come only as a result of a violent revolution. In ad- 
dition to this the teachings of the Emile were looked upon, 
as, indeed, they were, as direct attacks upon the aristocracy 



576. History of Education 

and upon the Church. Hence the vested interests and 
authority of both were invoked against it. Many of the 
cahiers} or books of wrongs and grievances of the early 
Revohition, contain complaints and recommendations concern- 
ing schools. In general, a demand was made for a national 
plan for education. The work of the Revolution was chiefly 
to lay the basis for the institutional organization of educa- 
tion. Little was carried out, but much was projected. Only 
with certain phases, and those not the most important, can 
the influence of Rousseau be connected. Education was to 
be universal and to be free ; but it was also to be largely 
political and social. Even this work, the discussion of which 
belongs more properly under the sociological tendency 
(p. 731), was largely checked by the Napoleonic reaction. 

In England, where Rousseau's literary influence was very 
great and where his social ideas found many converts, his 
educational ideas received little support. True, they called 
forth considerable literature on the subject; but as England 
lacked any system of schools and as education, though con- 
trolled to a great extent by custom, was left almost wholly to 
the individual, there was little response in practice. The 
more restricted and more common-sense naturalism of Locke, 
combined as it was with the dominant disciplinary conception, 
recommended itself much more strongly to the matter-of-fact 
Briton. The one of these treatises on education of greatest 
originality was William Godwin's The Enquirer. There is 
nothing peculiarly original in this, — in fact, it does not 
approach the breadth of interest or of insight of the Emile. 
In simple essay form many of these principles of naturalistic 
education are set forth. The following paragraph gives, as 
nearly as a single statement can, the underlying thought of 
these somewhat scattered essays. 

1 Each of the three estates in every district drew up a cahier ; the representa- 
tives of that estate from every district in the province compiled from these a pro- 
vincial cahier ; in the States-general a committee of each estate formed from these 
a general cahier for its own estate, and these were presented to the king. 



Naturalistic Tendency in Education 57) 

'' According to the received modes of education, the master 
goes first, the pupil follows. According to the method recom- 
mended, it is probable that the pupil should go .first and the 
master follow. If I learn nothing but what I desire to learn, 
what should hinder me from being my own preceptor .? The 
first object of a system of instruction is to give the pupil a 
motive to learn. We have seen how far the established sys- 
tems fail in this office. The second object is to smooth the 
difficulties which present themselves in the acquisition of knowl- 
edge." The method appropriate to this has thus previously 
been described : " The most desirable mode of education, there- 
fore, in all instances where it shall be found sufficiently practi- 
cable, is that which is careful that all the acquisitions of the 
pupil shall be preceded and accompanied by desire. The best 
motive to learn is a perception of the value of the thing 
learned. The worst motive, without deciding whether or not 
it be necessary to have recourse to it, may well be affirmed to 
be constraint and fear." 

The Work of Basedow, Salzmann, and Campe in Germany- 
was the immediate outgrowth of Eousseau's influence, and 
represents the first positive formulation in practice of those 
revolutionary ideas given only a negative form by Rousseau. 
But with these, as later with Pestalozzi and others, much of 
the positive formulation was subject to the same criticism 
that held in the case of the original statement of Rousseau. 

Johann Berna7'd Basedow (i 723-1 790) gave in his early 
career and in his irregular course as a student evidence of his 
erratic though talented nature and of his unstable character. 
Becoming professor of philosophy in a Danish Academy ( 1 753) 
he was later transferred (1763), and, though yet salaried by the 
government, was soon compelled to give up all teaching on 
account of his unorthodox views. From 1763 he deluged 
Germany for many years with a succession of publications, and 
by his persistency succeeded in making his influence felt in 
spite of violent opposition on the part of all the traditional 
orthodox forces. For the first few years he was chiefly in- 
terested in reform in philosophical and reHgious teaching ; 



57S 



History of Education 



most of his publications were of a religious character, propa 
gating Rousseau's idea of natural religion and moralityo The 
one of his books most violently resented was Methodical In- 
struction, both in Natural and Biblical Religion. Coming 
under the influence of the Emile, from 1767 he directed his 
attention wholly to educational reform. In 1768 he issued 
An Address to the Friends of Humanity and to Persons in 




A "Naturalistic" School, from Basedow's Klemeutarwetk. 



Power, on Schools, on Education, and its Influence on Public 
Happiness, which contained a plan for a complete system of 
reformed elementary education. Advertised through many 
preliminary publications, supported by subscriptions from 
all parts of Europe from royalty and commonalty alike, 
this Elemcutai'werk finally appeared in 1774. At the same 
time was published his Book of Method for Fathers and Mothers 
of Families atid of Nations. This Elementary Work, for chil- 



Naturalistic Tende7tcy in Education 579 

dren, which appeared in four volumes with one hundred plates 
of illustrations, was a combination of the ideas of Copenius, 
Bacon, and Rousseau. It was the first step since the time of 
Comenius to improve the character of the work of the school 
through the preparation of appropriate text-books and the 
radical revision of the subject-matter of school work. It 
aimed first of all to give a knowledge of things and of words 
quite similar to the encyclopedic plan of the seventeenth- 
century reformer. This knowledge was primarily a knowl- 
edge of natural phenomena and forces ; in the next place, a 
knowledge of morals and of mental phenomena ; and, lastly, 
of social duties, of commerce, of economic affairs. In these 
latter the Rousseau ideas were approximated. The " natural 
methods " of Rousseau appeared as the second great feature 
of the book. Thus through the " method of experience " 
children were to be taught to read, both the vernacular and 
Latin, without weariness and without loss of time ; and in a 
similar way the truths of religion and of morality were to be 
imparted without the accompanying prejudices, narrowness, 
and formalism of existing religious teaching. 

If we are to accept the estimate of the historian of the 
times, these volumes were soon in almost every home of the 
middle and upper class in Germany, just as were the Emile 
and the Nezv Heloise of Rousseau in the preceding decade. As 
Basedow aimed to reform private as well as public education, 
the effect of this propaganda was profound, even if the char- 
acter of the education imparted could not be so characterized. 

Basedow and his followers, among whom Salzmann and 
Campe were the most important, soon produced a wholly new 
literature for children. As for the first time there was an 
education designed wholly for children, not controlled by the 
needs, character, and interests of adults, so also this was the 
first literature designed for children. Concerning the work 
of these men Schlosser,^ the great German historian of the 
eighteenth centur}-, remarks : — 

1 History oftJie Eighteenth Century, Vol, II, pp. 203-204. 



580 Histojy of Education 

" They and their successors and imitators soon deluged 
Germany with a silly literature for children, and sought to 
bring up little children in such a way as to make grown 
people into children. They were zealous opponents of both 
Jesuitical and pietistic education, because they, as well as the 
Jesuits, understood how to obtain the favor both of children 
and parents. They put an end indeed to all pedantry, but 
we must ascribe to them and their plans the sauciness and 
pertness of that all-knowing and therefore ignorant and pre- 
sumptuous generation of youths, who have been superficially 
educated by them, and of whom we have so many examples." 

It is not to be understood that Basedow's work was all 
positive and constructive. The greater part of it, especially 
his early work, was critical and destructive; and much that 
aimed to be constructive was ill-founded, erratic, overpreten- 
tious, superficial, and hence ineffective. Basedow himself 
was even less fitted than Rousseau to be an educational re- 
former. It is sufficient to say of him personally that he was 
vulgar, immoral, intemperate, given to the vices of the peas- 
antry from which he sprang without possessing their funda- 
mental virtues ; above all it cannot be doubted that he was 
in some respects an impostor and a mountebank. On the 
other hand he possessed an intellectual ability, a definite 
aim to reform the educational practices of his time, a tenacity 
of purpose worthy of the cause in which he enrolled himself, 
a rationalistic insight into affairs, and a power of arousing 
enthusiasm in others. Notwithstanding these defects and the 
fact that he was totally unable to carry out his own reform 
plans because he was so unpractical, Schlosser states that 
" he succeeded in effecting a complete change in the whole 
nature of education and instruction in Germany, which Rous- 
seau was able to accomplish neither in his native country nor 
in France." 

The Philanthropimini} — In 1774 was founded the long- 

1 A concrete description of the work of the Philanthropinum, translated from 
Von Raumer, is to be found in Barnard's German Teachers and Educators, p. 462, 



Naturalistic Tendency in Edtication 581 

heralded institution, erected to illustrate the principles of 
reformed education and termed the Philanthropinum. This 
institution at Dessau was the parent of many others, more or 
less short lived, but existing long enough to exert a pro- 
found influence on the education of children throughout the 
Teutonic countries. It is said t?iat educational institutions 
sprang up everywhere like factories. After the final over- 
throw of the Philanthropinum, through defective manage- 
ment, " the teachers from Dessau were scattered about 
in all parts of Germany, and each applied Basedow's ideas 
according to his own plan, they erected institutions, and 
converted what had been previously an honorable office into 
a trade." ^ 

The fundamental idea of the reform was " education 
according to nature," which was interpreted to mean that 
children should be treated as children, not as adults ; that 
languages should be taught by conversational methods, not 
through grammatical studies ; that physical exercises and 
games should find a place in the child's education ; that early 
training should be connected with " motion and noise," since 
children naturally love these ; that each child should be 
taught a handicraft, for reasons partly educational, partly 
social ; that the vernacular rather than the classical languages 
should constitute the chief subject-matter of education ; that 
instruction should be connected with realities rather than 
with words. 

The objects of the institution were to educate the rich 
and poor together, to give the former a proper natural educa- 
tion for social activity and leadership and to prepare the 
latter to teach. Under more competent hands the institution 
continued until 1793; meanwhile, many similar institutions 
were under way, two or three of which were widely influen- 
tial. The strong emphasis upon the training of teachers 
reacted favorably upon the entire German school system. 

1 Schlosser, Vol. II, p. 20t;. 



582 History of Education 

The introduction of " turning, planing, and carpentering '' 
into the regular course of study of the Philanthropinum for 
educational purposes is the earliest practical recognition of 
the purely educational value of positive character to be 
found in manual work. School instruction from objects and 
from pictures here first found an elaboration in actual school 
work. The connection between the out-of-door life and the 
process of instruction was made more intimate. The principle 
that all instruction has a moral because a practical outcome, 
and that formal moral instruction is of little value when not 
thus connected, was embodied in their work. 

From the later pages of this book it will be recognized 
that all of these ideas are worked out more explicitly by later 
reformers, especially Herbart, Pestalozzi, and Froebel. How- 
ever crudely they were realized in the work of Basedow, his 
work was of sufficient merit to command the approval of 
Kant, while the general ideas and the man himself received 
the commendation of Goethe. Though Basedow was with- 
out question much of a charlatan in his educational work, as 
he was also a drunkard and an impractical visionary, at the 
same time his work undoubtedly initiated the reform move- 
ment in the German schools. His methods of instruction in 
geography, physics, nature study, history, geometry, and 
arithmetic were as revolutionary and as fruitful as those of 
Pestalozzi, and his application of them was quite as success- 
ful. But since the later reformer came to a clearer con- 
sciousness of the principles underlying the new, and gave 
the Rousseau influence the particular tendency in regard to 
method along which it afterward developed, further considera- 
tions of the movement must be given in that connection. 
However, it is well to remember that the common practice of 
attributing the reform in education throughout the Teutonic 
countries to Pestalozzi is an erroneous one, and that at an 
earlier period Basedow had exerted as profound an influence 
toward practical reform as did Pestalozzi a generation later. 



Naturalistic Tendency in Education 583 

The latter reformer but continued along slightly different 
lines the movement initiated by Basedow and popularized 
by his followers. 

Joachim Heinrich Campe (1746-18 18) was the leading 
follower of Basedow, his successor at Dessau, the founder 
of a philanthropinum at Hamburg, and the author of a great 
number of works embodying the idea of the new education. 
His Robinson der Jiingere (1779) was the model for Wyss' 
Swiss Family Robinson, familiar to children of every land. 
The didactic character, the penchant for information, espe- 
cially for that of natural phenomena, the familiar moralizing, 
the rehgious coloring, one might almost say the cant, that 
pervades this little volume is characteristic of the entire move- 
ment. Among Campe's works are many for teachers. He 
also translated the works of Locke and Rousseau as a basis 
for the educational reform movement. 

Christian Gottiielf Salzinajin (1744-1811) was, next to 
Basedow and Campe, the most prominent of these exponents 
of the new education and a most voluminous writer on educa- 
tion. Most of these writings sought to combine a strong reli-. 
gious and moralizing tendency with the naturalistic tendencies 
of Rousseau. As with Campe, Salzmann, in his attempt to 
embody these ideas in a new educational material, produced 
many popular works for children. 

These men were followed in turn by a multitude of minor 
educators, many of them pretenders, who sought to take 
advantage of this serious reform movement, merely for their 
own advantage. As the philanthropinist movement was an 
eminently practical one, this was most easily accomplished. 



REFERENCES 
The Enlightenment. 

Francke, Social Forces in German Literatjire, Chs. VII-VIII. (New York, 

1897.) 
Hegel, Philosophy of History, Sec. Ill, Ch. III. 



584 History of Education 

Schlosser, History of the Eighteenth Century, 8 vols. 

Texte, Rousseaji and [he Cosmopolitan Influence in Liierat7ire, Bk. I, Chs. 
II-III. (London, 1899.) 

Roicsseau. 

Davidson, Roiisseau^ Pt. II. (New York, 1898.) 

Hudson, Rousseau and Naturalism in Life and Thought, Pt. I. (New 

York, 1902.) 
Macdonald, Studies in the France of Voltaire and Rousseau, Ch. II. 

(London, 1895.) 
Moxley, Rousseaic, 2 vols. (London, 1888.) 

Doctrine of the Natural State. 

Davidson, Rousseau, Pt. I. 

Hudson, Ch. VI. 

Macdonald, Ch. VII. 

Morley, Rousseau, Vol. I, Ch. V. 

Payne, Roussea^i's Emile, Introduction. 

Rousseau, A Dissertation on the Origin and Foundation of the Inequality 

of Manki)id. (English translations in any edition of Rousseau's 

miscellaneous works.) 
Rousseau, A Dissertation on the Effects of Ciiltivatingthe Arts and Sciences. 

The Emile and Rousseau'' s Educational Ideas. 

Davidson, Rousseau, Pt. III. 

Hudson, Ch. IX. 

Morley, Rousseau, Vol. II, Ch. VII. 

Munroe, The Educational Ideal. (Boston, 1896.) 

Payne, Rotisseaii' s Emile. 

Quick, Educational Reformers, Ch. XIV. 

The Naturalistic Tendency in Ger?na7ty. 

Barnard, German Teachers and Educators, pp. 457-491. 
Quick, Educational Reforfners, Basedow, Ch. XV. 
Schlosser, History of the Eightee7ith Century, Vol. II, Ch. IL 

TOPICS FOR FURTHER INVESTIGATION 

1. What ideals of education can you discover in Lord Chesterfield's 
Letters to his Son ? 

2. What agreement is there between the educational ideas of " the 
Enlightenment" and those of Montaigne? 



Naturalistic Tendency in Educatio7i 585 

3. What parallels and what connections can be discovered during the 
eighteenth century between the development of either philosophical, reli- 
gious, or political thought and educational thought? 

4. In their educational bearings what similarity is there between "the 
Enlightenment" and the fifteenth-century Renaissance? 

5. What justification can you find in the Evtile and in the other 
writings of Rousseau for this threefold interpretation of the naturalistic 
doctrine? 

6. What concrete evidences and results of each aspect of naturalistic 
education are to be found in the Emile ? 

7. To what extent is Rousseau correct in his contention that educa- 
tion should be negative? 

8. What defects can you point out in Rousseau's ideas of moral 
education? 

9. What are the details of Rousseau's ideas of the education of 
women, and wherein do they controvert his general educational principles ? 

10. To what extent did Jefferson and the early American statesmen 
owe their ideas on education to Rousseau ; or to what extent, at least, is 
there a similarity between them? 

11. What similarity and what differences of views between Rousseau 
and Locke are to be found? Between Rousseau and Montaigne? 

12. What basis does Rousseau offer for the doctrine of self-activity 
emphasized by Froebel ? For the doctrine of interest? 

13. To what extent are Rousseau's principles of education applicable 
at the present time? 

14. Which of Rousseau's ideas concerning education would be rejected 
now? 

15. Give a statement in positive form of the ideas stated negatively by 
Rousseau. 



Chronological Table of Educational Development during the 
Nineteenth Century 



Political 


Literary 
Men, 


Scientists 

AND 


Educational 




Events and 


Religious 


Philoso- 


Writings and 


Educational Events 


Personages 


Leaders, 
etc. 


phers 


Educators 




I Boo. 


Goethe 


Hegel 


Pestalozzi, 


1803. Sunday-school Union f. 


1804. Bonaparte 


1749 1832 


1770-1831 


How Gertrude 


1805. Public School Society of 


emperor. 


Wordsworth 


Cuvier 


Teaches . 1801 


New York. 


1807. Class 


1770-1850 


1769-1832 


Jacotot 1770-1840 


1806. University of France f. 


distinctions 


Byron 


Comte 


Herbart, 1776-1841 


i8o5. Necf introduces 


and serfdom 


1788-1824 


1798 -1857 


F"roebel 1782 1852 


Pestalozzi in United States. 


abolished in 


Scott 


Faraday 


Thomas Arnold 


1808. First treatise on education 


Germany. 


1771-1832 


1791-1867 


1795 -1842 


published in United States. 


1814. Bonaparte 


Coleridge 


Hamilton 


Rosmini 


1809. University of Berlin 


at Elba. 


1772 -1834 


1788-1856 


1797-1855 


founded. 


1815. Congress 


Irving 


Liebig 


Herbart's General 


1808-1811. Von Humboldt head 


of Vienna. 


1783-1859 


1803-1873 


Pedagogics, 1806 


of German schools. 


Frederick 


Cooper 


J. S, SliU 


Horace Mann 


1 804-1844 Fellenberg's School 


William 


1789-1851 


1806-1873 


1796-1859 


at Hofwyl. 


1797 i8<tO 


Emerson 


Herbert 


Rosenkranz 


1811. National Society for 


1810-1830 Free- 


1803 1882 


Spencer 


1805-1879 


Promotion of Ed. of the Poor. 


dom of South 


Thackeray 


1820-1903 


George Combe 


1813 First State superintendent 


American 


1811-1863 


Buckle, 


1788-1858 


of ed. in United States (N.Y.). 


States. 


Dickens 


History 


Froebel, 


1814 British and Foreign School 


1817. Wartburg 


1812-1870 


of Civili- 


Education of 


Society. 


demonstration 




zation 


Man. .1826 


1818. Lancaster comes to U.S. 


for freedom. 




1857 


Spencer, Essay on 


1821. First legislative aid for 


1830. July 




Darwin, 


Education, 1861 


education of women (N.Y.). 


Revolution in 




Origin of 


Alexander Bain 


1821. First High School 


France. 




Species 


1818-1887 


(Boston). 


1830. Reform 




1859 


Henry Barnard 


1827, All schools free in 


bill in 




Agassiz 


1811-1900 


Massachusetts 


England. 




1807-1873 


Stoy . 1815-1885 


1835. Cousin's Report published 


1833 Slavery 




Darwin 


Otto Frick 


in United States. 


abolished in 




1811-1882 


1832 -1892 


1837. Mount Holyoke seminary 


British 




Wallace 


Tuiskon Zeller 


ior women. 


colonies. 




1820 


1817 1883 


1837-1849. Mann Secretary of 


1846. Corn 






R. H. Quick 


Mass Bureau of Ed. 


laws repealed. 






1831-1891 


1837. First kindergarten. 


1848 French 








1837. First city superintendent 


Revolution. 








of schools. 


1851. New 








1838 First State normal school 


French 








in United States (Mass ). 


Empire. 






• 


1843. School Board in New York 


1854. Crimean 








City. 


War. 








1850. Kindergartens forbidden in 


1870. Franco- 








Germany. 


Prussian War. 








i860. First kindergarten in U.S. 


1871. German 








1861. First Ph.D. in U.S. 


Empire 








1862. Morrell land grant for 


founded. 








agricultural and technical 


1871. The 








education. 


Union of Italy. 








1867. Elective system at 

Harvard. 
1867. United States 

Commissioner of Education. 
1867. All State schools free in 

New York. 

1869. English Endowed School 
Act. 

1870. Elem. Ed. Act in Eng. 


















1873 Kindergarten part of 










public school (St. Louis). 










1890. Berlin School Conference. 










1896-1897. University of France 








reorganized. 



586 



CHAPTER XI 
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL TENDENCY IN EDUCATION 

THE GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. — These three ten 
dencies, the psychological, sociological, and scientific, growing 
out of the thought of the later eighteenth century, developed 
together and are not always clearly distinguishable in time, 
in place, or in personnel. So far as its full effect on schools 
was concerned, the psychological tendency, relating chiefly 
to educational method, had some precedence in time over the 
scientific tendency, relating chiefly to subject-matter, and 
over the sociological, relating both to subject-matter and to 
organization. As the direct outgrowth of the naturahstic 
tendency, the psychological tendency has the logical claim to 
first consideration. 

In the summary of the general educational results of the 
naturalistic movement, it will be recalled that all those in- 
fluences, save possibly one, related to the method of educa- 
tion as method grows out of the nature of the child. The 
psychological tendency was simply the clarifying and devel- 
oping of these positions ; for certainly the basal thought of the 
psychological tendency was that education is not an artificial 
procedure, by which one comes into possession of a knowledge 
of the forms of language and literature or of formal knowl- 
edge of any sort, but that it is a natural process of growth 
from within, of an unfolding of capacities implanted in our 
nature. In other words, education was considered as a devel- 
opment, or organic growth, which could be hindered or 
helped by the methods in which the natural capacities or 
activities were treated. The great difference between the 

587 



588 History of Edtuation 

Rousseau ideas and the psychological principles was that the 
former were mostly negative and destructive ; while the psy- 
chological tendency was the effort to state these ideas in 
positive form and to give the influences a concrete formula- 
tion in actual school procedures. In one respect the central 
thought of the psychological tendency, as expressed by its 
leading exponents, was a radical advance beyond that of 
Rousseau. The naturalistic tendency had opposed most 
violently the dominant education of the school, whose spirit 
and purpose were represented in the disciplinary conception of 
education. The psychological tendency, on the other hand, 
sought a reconciliation of the conflict between the old " edu- 
cation of effort" and the new "education of interest." But 
since the old remained intrenched for many decades of the 
nineteenth century, and the work of the new was to destroy 
it by conflict, it was this latter aspect of conflict rather than 
that of reconciliation that was ever most prominent. The 
fact that the rank and file of the new educators — those that 
followed the lead of the few great exponents without having 
their grasp of the problem — emphasized almost exclusively 
the importance of method, and in this connection the impor- 
tance of interest also; led to emphasis upon conflict rather than 
upon reconciliation. For while the philosophical statement 
of theory by the leading exponents of the new recognized the 
importance of effort, it was in regard to details of method 
that the conflict was most apparent and seemingly most ir- 
reconcilable. Having in mind, then, simply the historical 
aspect, and that chiefly as it affected the schools previous to 
the last twenty years, one may say that the psychological 
movement, as here limited, continued the period of conflict. 
The attempt at reconciliation becomes prominent in the con- 
temporary aspects of thought and practice, in which the 
psychological tendency becomes fused with other nineteenth- 
century tendencies, and is to be considered in the concluding 
chapter. 



Psychological Tendency in Education 589 

However profound may have been the effort of Herbart 
and Froebel to effect this reconciUation, in the popular con- 
ception there was an irreconcilable opposition. A brief 
extract, contrasting the main ideas of these two views, taken 
from a review of one of Pestalozzi's works by Caroline Frye 
in her Assistant of Education} will serve as an illustration. 

"Of the second work, Pestalozzi's Letters on Early Educa- 
tion, we have little to say. A book written for the inhabitants 
of Mars, if there are any, would almost as much come under 
our task of criticism. If there be a people between the Alps, 
in the bosom of whose offspring there is an innate principle 
of faith and love, that needs only to be cultivated and cherished 
by the sacred power of innocence, to produce pure morality 
and exalted devotion, this book belongs to them. It need 
not have been put into English, or any language into which 
the word of God has been translated ; for it belies it utterly. 
We have no such children to educate, and therefore the book 
is useless to us. I could not help comparing the following 
passage, one among many such, of Pestalozzi — ' I would, in 
the first place, direct your attention to the existence and the 
early manifestation of a spiritual principle, even in an infant 
mind. I would put in the strongest light that there is in the 
child an active power of faith and love ; the two principles 
by which, under the divine guidance, our nature is made to 
participate in the highest blessings that are in store for us. 
And this power is not, as other faculties are, in a dormant 
state in the infant mind. While all other faculties, whether 
mental or physical, present the image of utter helplessness, 
of a weakness which in its first attempts at exertion only 
leads to pain and disappointment, that same power of faith 
and love displays an energy, an intensity, which is never sur- 
passed by its most successful efforts when in full growth ' — 
we could not help comparing with curiosity this dream of 
Socinianism, with some sentences from a Christian author ^ 
we happened to take up on the same day : — ' No sooner do 
children begin to act at all, but we discover how universally 
sin has pervaded all the sources of intelligence. There is a 
greater pleasure in reflecting on the images of crime than 

^ Vol. IX, p. 363. 2 Newham, On the Princitiles of Education. 



590 History of Education 

on the character of piety ; the conscience is enfeebled and 
oppressed ; its voice is stifled and its actions perverted ; the 
imagination delights to revel over scenes of iniquity, and is 
difficultly carried forward to anticipations of future happiness, 
glory, and praise : the will is enslaved by selfishness ; the 
imitation of all that is wrong is most easy, — of all that is 
right is most onerous, — the judgment is prone to perpetual 
error; the evil passions grow and flourish, while the good are 
educated with difficulty.' The Christian mother will com- 
pare these opposing principles with the testimony of Scrip- 
ture and of her own heart, and will have no difficulty in 
deciding in which author to study the principles of education." 

The emphasis upon interest and the conception that educa- 
tion is but a development of germs, or powers, implanted in 
the child's nature, formed but part of a large thought which 
constituted an essential of this tendency. The idea that 
education should be according to nature, which constituted 
an aspect of the thought of the sense-realists as well as that 
of Rousseau, now took more definite shape as a newer con- 
ception of human nature tends to take the place of the old 
one that had prevailed so long. This newer conception in 
education was closely bound up with that which at the same 
time was taking shape in philosophy and in science. Educa- 
tionally "nature" now came to indicate the nature, or mind, 
of man ; and the principles upon which education was to be 
based were now sought for in the principles of activity and of 
development of the human mind. It is true, however, that 
the scientific formulation of these principles of psychology, as 
based upon an accurate scientific knowledge derived by 
observation and experimental method, was hardly begun 
before the middle of the nineteenth century, and that the 
application of these to education is yet largely the work of 
the future ; but the movement itself was begun in the early 
part of the century. 

However much the Middle Ages had modified the psy- 
chology of Aristotle, no advance. was made until the opening 



Psychological l^endency in Education 591 

of the modern philosophical and scientific movement, which 
was the source of the educational movement described under 
the term sense-realism. Descartes, and after him Hobbes 
and Spinoza, had emphasized the relationship between phys- 
ical and mental processes. While this was the key to the 
solution of the psychological problems, its general signifi- 
cance was not grasped until later. Locke, who was not 
primarily a psychologist, attempted to show that all knowl- 
edge is due to the data given by sense-perception and reflec- 
tion. This again emphasized the dependence of the psychical 
upon physical processes and the importance of training of 
the sense organs ; but its chief immediate influence was that 
upon the associative theory of knowledge, which practically 
controlled throughout the eighteenth century. With the 
opening of the century there came a marked development of 
the idea of psycho-physical parallelism, due especially to 
Herbart and Hartley. Herbart investigated the origin and 
development of space and time relations — aspects of the 
mind's activities previously held innate — as connected with 
sense perceptions and physical processes. Herbart men- 
tioned experimentation and experience along with meta- 
physics and mathematics as the three sources of knowl- 
edge of the mind. Yet, so far as his dominant attitude is 
concerned, he is yet classed with the old psychologists, 
who based their interpretation of mental phenomena on 
metaphysical grounds. But in completely throwing over 
the old psychology of the faculties, he is held to be the 
founder of the new. So in Herbart, who played so im- 
portant a part in this educational development, psychol- 
ogy finds the dividing line between the old and the 
new. Pestalozzi's gropings after these principles of educa- 
tion, founded in a new and truer conception of the 
human mind, were purely empirical. Even the interpreta- 
tions reached by Herbart have had to be reformulated — 
many of them to be entirely rejected. But the significant 



592 History of Edtication 

truth reached was the conviction that this more accurate 
interpretation of human nature, based upon a careful scien- 
tific study of the mind, was now possible, and that an ade- 
quate conception of education and any formulation of more 
fruitful processes of instruction must be based upon the 
results of such study. /To this general tendency, vague 
and indefinite as it was in its application to education, we 
have here given the term psychological. The most that 
can be essayed in this limited space is an account of what 
those of the leading innovators in this line attempted. 

One further characteristic of this tendency which, as just 
seen, may not be quite adequately characterized by the term 
psychological, is that it aimed at improvement in the character 
of education ; whereas the complementary movement, which 
in the same general way may be characterized as sociological, 
aimed at the more general diffusion of education. The inter- 
est of the men included in this group, or — more accurately 
— the modifying influence of these tendencies included 
under this term, was directed chiefly to the improvement in 
the method of instruction, in the spirit of the schoolroom, 
in the character and training of the teacher, and in the popu- 
larization of a broader and truer conception of the nature of 
education. 

Thus there followed a sympathy for childhood, a knowl- 
edge of the child, of the child mind, of the child's interests 
and abilities, that were wholly unknown in previous periods 
and entirely absent from the schoolroom in all previous ages. 
While the actual knowledge of the child mind was at first 
slight and for a long time was gained by empirical means 
alone, yet educational practice came to be based upon a study 
of childhood, and the theories concerning education came to 
be formulated from data gathered during actual contact with 
the child. 

Consequently, the chief interest in education was diverted 
to an entirely different phase of the educational process. For 



Psychological Tende^tcy in Education 593 

many centuries, it will be recalled, the interest in education 
was in the secondary and higher stages. AH the early re- 
formers, the realists as well as the humanists, thought espe- 
cially of the acquisition of foreign languages and hterature 
as the chief work of education. Little or no attention was 
given to the elementary stage. Comenius, it is true, wrote 
of infant and vernacular schools, but he supervised and wrote 
text-books for the Latin schools. The chief immediate inter- 
est of almost all those participating in this new tendency, not- 
withstanding the fact that Herbart made use of the Greek 
and Latin for his educational instruments, was in the ele- 
mentary stage. Pestalozzi's ideas and practices are limited 
to work in reading in the vernacular, to writing, and to arith- 
metic. While Froebel wrote concerning the philosophy of 
education as a whole, his practical work and influence was 
confined to the earliest stages. From that time to this the 
formulation of educational theory and the improvement in 
educational practice has, with few exceptions, related prima- 
rily to elementary education. Since most educational prin- 
ciples have been formulated with ths problems of elementary 
education only in mind, and since many such principles have 
been projected, without sufficient adaptation, to apply to 
higher stages, when applicable in the given form only to 
those conditions from which deduced, this condition has often 
resulted in confusion. 

A fundamental conception of the psychological tendency — 
that education is the process of the development of the indi- 
vidual — accorded with the individualizing tendencies of the 
later eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth century, and 
with the ideas of social progress, of biological development, 
and of evolution in all its scientific and philosophical impli- 
cations, that during the same period were becoming clarified. 
Though stated in quite different terms now, the thought and 
even the form accepted for two or three generations was that 
given by Pestalozzi; namely, that education was "the har- 

2Q 



594 History of Education 

monious development of all the powers of the individual." 
"% The same general idea, in different terminology, due to more 
accurate knowledge of psychology, is now expressed in terms 
of " organization of acquired habits of action or tendencies to 
behavior." This conception of education in terms of indi- 
vidual development is an essential feature of the psychological 
conception of education, and is one great contribution of the 
late eighteenth and the early nineteenth century to education. 
Nevertheless, this conception has its sociological significance 
and coincides with the tendency to universal education in one 
respect ; namely, if education is the process of development 
of the individual, if it is at basis a natural rather than an arti- 
ficial process, it is a process through which all human beings 
go and a process from the regulation and direction of which 
all can profit. Consequently there results an emphasis upon 
popular and universal education that was not possible so long 
as the chief interest was in higher education, and so long as 
education was the process of giving to the child or forcing 
on the child the ideas, emotional reactions, and activities of 
adults. 

PHILOSOPHICAL ASPECT OF THE MOVEMENT.— 

Closely related to the psychological tendency was the 
philosophical. So closely related in fact that instead of 
two movements the psychological movement may be con- 
sidered as possessing two aspects, one practical and concrete, 
which through experimentation attempted to work out general 
principles, the other metaphysical in its characteristics and 
aiming at the formulation of the logic of education. It is only 
the former that can be considered here, since the men repre- 
senting the practical movement — Pestalozzi, Herbart, Froebel 
— but expressed the dominant ideas gained from the thought 
movement typified by Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Schleiermacher, 
and Hegel. As occupants of chairs of philosophy, these 
men found it part of their duty to lecture on education, yet 



Psychological Tendency in Education 595 

with most it was of subsidiary interest. The one man who 
represented both movements was Herbart. There are many, 
of less prominence in both groups, especially in more recent 
times, whose writings, though of value, and whose influence, 
though of importance in their respective countries, cannot be 
discussed here. 

The Philosopher Kant (i 724-1 804) had as a part of his 
scholastic duties the delivering of a course of lectures upon 
education. The notes of these were published in 1803 under 
the title On Education {Ueber Pddagogik). Much in these 
was carried over from his philosophy and ethics; much was 
common to the thought of the times. In fact, his work 
reads like a combination of the familiar ideas of Locke and 
Rousseau, in which the extreme naturalism and freedom of 
the French emotionalist is tempered with much of the dis- 
cipline of the English rationalist. The groundwork of the 
treatise is given in the first paragraph : " Man is the only 
being who needs education. For by education we must needs 
understand nurture (the tending and feeding of the child), 
discipline and teaching, together with culture. According to 
this, man is in succession infant (requiring nursing), child 
(requiring discipline), and scholar (requiring teaching)." 
While the germs of development are in nature, it is only 
through education that they are perfected. " There are 
many germs lying undeveloped in man. It is for us to make 
these germs grow, by developing his natural gifts in their 
due proportion, and to see that he fulfills his destiny." Thus 
is suggested one of the earliest harmonizations of the educa- 
tion of interest (nature) and the education of effort (disci- 
phne). While Kant follows Rousseau in insisting on the 
education of the child for himself, yet he maintains that his 
education must be "not for the present, but for a possibly 
improved condition of man in the future." The treatment of 
the subject divides into four topics ; through education man 
must be made subject to discipline, must be supplied with 



59t) Histo7y of Education 

culture, endowed with discretion, and be made moral. 
Through discipline the unruliness of nature is subjected to 
reason. Through culture, consisting of information and in- 
struction, abihty is brought out which later may be applied to 
various ends determined by moral and practical education. 
Through discretion one is enabled to conduct himself with 
propriety and refinement in society. Through moral educa- 
tion one's disposition is so trained that he chooses only good 
aims in life. This latter, so neglected in education, is in 
reality its highest end. 

Johann Karl Friederick Rosenkranz (i 805-1 879), the suc- 
cessor of Kant and Herbart in the philosophical chair at 
Konigsberg, published a Philosophy of Education in 1848, 
which was largely an interpretation of the philosophy of 
Hegel in educational terms. Man's Jtrue nature is his ideal 
nature, found at birth only in germ but developed by a pro- 
cess of education. This process consists in the putting away 
or suppression of his first or animal nature by a process of 
"estrangement" and of gradual approximation to his ideal 
nature by an assimilation of those things which belong to 
culture. Education is a process of "self-estrangement" and 
of "identification " with the self of that which was previously 
foreign and existed only in the ideal. Through the applica- 
tion of this principle to various phases, a philosophy of moral 
and religious as well as intellectual education, of discipline, of 
method, and of the history of education is worked out 

The interest felt in the formulation of the problems of 
education by this group of men is largely of a theoretic char- 
acter ; the practical bearing is given through those mentioned 
in the other group. 

The Phrenological Movement. -— One other aspect of the 
psychological tendency, in its earlier form, needs to be men- 
tioned at least on account of its historical association. This 
was the widely popular " science of phrenology," now so 
discredited that its advocacy is immediately condemned as 



Psychological Tendency in Education 59} 

charlatanism. In its earlier stages, however, this movement 
had a far more respectable following and an educational 
influence of no mean character. The major premise of the 
doctrine of the phrenologists is the belief that all nature is 
governed by law and that there is a close relationship between 
the physical and psychical ; its minor premise, that many 
mental functions have localized brain centers. Both are 
accepted by present science. Modern investigators have, how- 
ever, rejected its conclusion that any mental trait is propor- 
tionate in strength to the size of a given identified portion 
of the brain organism and that this importance is indicated 
by external conformations of the skull. That it was no charla- 
tanism in its day is indicated by the men who were prominent 
leaders in the movement and by its educational influence. 
Lavater and Spurzheim in Germany, George Combe in Eng- 
land, Horace Mann and Fowler in the United States, were 
its chief exponents. In Germany the movement soon coa- 
lesced with the more scientific psychological movement ; in 
England it realized itself in the demand for scientific educa- 
tion ; while in the persons of Fellenberg, Combe and Mann, in 
their respective countries, it revealed its practical importance. 
As the " science of mental faculties" it was an extremely 
empirical and practical psychology that appealed to many 
men with little scientific training. 

THE PESTALOZZIAN MOVEMENT. Character and Signifi- 
cance of his Work. — It must be understood at the outset, 
that much more is included under this subject than the per- 
sonal work and influence of Pestalozzi ; for it is a very com- 
mon error to overestimate the importance of this one reformer 
in the history of education, and a gross exaggeration to 
attribute to him the entire educational reform movement of 
the early part of the nineteenth century. On the contrary, 
Pestalozzi but made positive and concrete the negative and 
general educational principles enunciated by Rousseau; and. 



598 History of Education 

as we have seen, there were many others, notably Basedow 
and his group, who were successfully engaged in the same 
work. Pestalpzzi himself says of these : " Ignorant and im- 
practical as I was, but with my powe r of comprehension and 
simplifying, I was at the same time the lowest hedge school- 
master and also reformer of instruction — and this in an age 
in which, since the epochs of Rousseau and Basedow, half 
the world had been set in motion for this purpose." On the 
other hand, the ideas and practices generally grouped under 
his name are largely due to the work of his assistants and of 
the innumerable teachers of succeeding generations who have 
labored along the lines first indicated by him. No one has 
been more insistent than Pestalozzi that his ideas were not 
realized by himself or by his assistants, and that it was for 
the future to work them out in reality. He it was who first 
made clear and forced upon the public the position that the 
whole problem of education was to be considered from the 
point of view of the developing mind of the child. This 
view was not wholly original with him, for it had been sug- 
gested by others; but he first made the schoolroom world 
conscious of its importance, and therein lies his greatness. 
Around him centered the controversy concerning the new 
point of view of method in education, and to him and his follow- 
ers was due the initial propaganda. To his co-laborers should 
be credited much of the concrete statement of the new ideas ; 
to his successors, including the great number of unnamed 
but earnest and clear-sighted teachers everywhere, is due the 
perfecting of them. Later educational theorists, especially 
the two considered in this chapter, possessing all of the prac- 
tical insight of Pestalozzi, with fuller philosophical penetration 
than his, together with broader knowledge, have built upon 
his work a more extensive and stable structure of educational 
doctrine than could the Swiss reformer. 

In his writings there are many blunders, — there must be 
some for there are many contradictions; and the man who 



Psychological Tendeiicy in Education 599 

boasted that he had not read a book in thirty years, in an age 
when all advance in thought was crystallized in literature, 
could hardly avoid some error. His practices were full of 
absurdities, — - how otherwise could he have explained the 
many failures in the application of ideas held to be the only 
correct ones? The desire to be novel at every point in the 
rejection of the old school routine led to many mistakes and 
eccentricities. Von Raumer, the historian of education and a 
student in the Institute at Yverdun, remarks : " The source 
of the internal contradiction which runs through the life of 
Pestalozzi was, as we have seen from his own confessions, the 
fact that in spite of his grand ideal which comprehended 
the whole human race, he did not possess the ability and 
the skill requisite for conducting the smallest village school." 
But no one has been more just than Pestalozzi himself in 
recognizing the limitations of his work, in realizing that 
the particular form which he gave to his ideas was but ten- 
tative, and that these great ideas even were possessed in 
rudimentary form only. In the preface to his work on 
method, written twenty years after *:he appearance of the iirst 
edition, he says : " If these letters [Hoiv Gertinide Teac/ies~\ 
may be considered in some respects as already answered and 
partly refuted by this time, and thus appear to belong to the 
past rather than to the present, yet if my idea of elementary 
education has any value in itself and is fitted to survive 
in the future, then these letters, so far as they throw light 
on the way in which the germ of the idea was developed 
in me, may have a living value for every man who considers 
the psychological development of educational methods 
worthy of his attention." 

The point made emphatic by the reformer is often over- 
looked by his expositors and disciples. The significance of 
our study of Pestalozzi in connection with the general psy- 
chological tendency in education is not in the finality of his 
views, but in that which- he states, — that here we may see 



6oo History of Education 

the development of the germs of modern educational ideas, 
P2ven in an examination of the practical work of Pestalozzi 
it is evident that the embodiment of his ideas was very 
imperfect and his success in their formulation only par- 
tial. Here again we may listen to his own appreciation of 
his work and that of his co-laborers. Surveying his work from 
near the close of his life, he remarks : " But the cry 'We can 
do it,' before we could ; ' We are doing it,' before we did, was 
too loud, too distinct, too often repeated, partly by men whose 
testimony had a real value in itself and deserved attention. 
But it had too much charm for us ; we made more of it than 
it really said or meant." And in another place : "The high- 
est attainment (in popular education) can only be reached by 
means of a finished art of teaching and a most perfect psy- 
chology ; thus securing the utmost perfection in the mechan- 
ism of the natural progression from confused impressions to 
intelligent ideas ; this is in truth far beyond my powers." 

In the face, then, of his lack of any philosophical and or- 
ganizing ability, his lack of accuracy, of consistency, of persist- 
ency, and of practical success, it becomes necessary to restate 
the basis of his importance in educational history. What he 
did do was to emphasize the new purpose in education, but 
/vaguely perceived, where held at all, by others ; to make clear 
the new meaning of education which existed in rather a nebu- 
lous state in the pubhc mind ; to formulate an entirely new 
method, based on new principles, both of which were to re- 
ceive a further development in subsequent times, and to pass 
under his name ; and, finally, to give an entirely new spirit to 
the schoolroom. 

The significance of much of Pestalozzi's work was that it 
was experimentation now substituted-Jinutradition as a basis 
for educational work. Hence its value lies, not in any particu- 
lar form of experiment, but in the final results attained ; or, 
since we are even yet far from finality, in principle or practice 
still to be attained. In much, then, Pestalozzi was a learner 



Psychological Tendency in E due a f ion 60 i 

rather than a teacher. " My views of the subject," said he, 
"came out of a personal striving after methods, the execution 
of which forced me actively and experimentally to seek, to 
gain, and to work out what was not there, and what as yet I 
really knew not." Consequently, more than in the case of 
any other man in the history of education, it is necessary to 
study his life and experience in order to understand his ideas, 
for these are not always the same, but develop. They are the 
direct outgrowth of the experimental life which he led. 

Life and Works. — Heinrich Pestalozzi (i 746-1 827) was 
raised in a fatherless family, where the sympathy, watchful 
care and loving insight of a mother furnished a training in 
place of that which might have come from the more masculine 
virtues of a father or from the world at large, and gave to 
him his purpose of introducing into the school the ideal of home 
relationships and to bring about the improvement, even the 
regeneration, of the masses of the people. As he said, " I will 
put skill into the hand of the mother, into the hand of the 
child, and into the hand of the innocent ; and the scorner shall 
say no more [of the improvement of the masses] — ' It is a 
dream.' " 

He was early influenced by the naturahstic movement, espe- 
cially by the Eniile, and became an ardent revolutionist, as 
all humanitarians then must have become. Abandoning in 
turn his preparation for the ministry, for the law and for 
public service, he entered finally upon an agricultural life, 
with the double purpose of improving a waste tract of land 
through new methods of cultivation and of living a life in ac- 
cord with the prevalent naturahstic ideals. Practical success 
in these lines he failed to obtain ; but the failure gave him 
an opportunity for trying an experiment even nearer his 
heart's desire, the founding of a philanthropic institute for 
destitute children. Meanwhile he had been experimenting 
in the attempt to bring up his one child according to the 
ideas of the Entile. Experience led him to see many of the 



6o2 History of Education 

deficiencies as well as the excellencies of this negative treatise 
and put him on the road toward his life's great task, in the 
positive formulation of these ideas. His first educational 
work, entitled A JoiLrnal of a Father, — ^one of the earliest ex-' 
amples of child study, — was a further result of this experience. 

The philanthropic venture mentioned above was an educa- 
tional experiment as well, for it was but an application of the 
doctrine advocated by the naturalists, that the character of 
individuals is shaped by their environment. Reduce this to 
as nearly natural conditions as possible, they held, and char- 
acter will be formed or developed. So Neuhof became a 
refuge for some score of beggar children, or children of poor 
parents who gave them no care. The development of the 
factory system of labor had already begun to accentuate the 
economic division of the people and to produce a poverty- 
stricken class, whose children were much more neglected 
than those of the peasantry and of whom no care was taken 
save by the poorhouses or charitable institutions that but in- 
creased the moral and industrial evils. From 1 775-1 780 Pes- 
talozzi conducted what was probably the first " industrial 
school for the poor." The children were engaged in raising 
special farm products, in spinning and weaving of cotton 
and in other occupations. While so engaged they also spent 
some time in reading and committing passages to memory 
and especially in arithmetical exercises. There was no real 
connection between the occupations and the intellectual ac- 
tivities, but Pestalozzi demonstrated at least that the two 
could go on together. The combined functions of manager, 
farmer, manufacturer, merchant, schoolmaster, was beyond 
the ability of the reformer. This, together with the fact 
that the children were practically the refuse of society, and 
that their parents and people in general were without any 
appreciation of his enterprise, but were rather hostile to it, 
led to its abandonment. 

During the next eighteen years Pestalozzi, as a participant in 



Psychological Tendency in Education 603 

the revolutionary movement, devoted himself chiefly to literary 
work. For nearly two years he served as editor of the Swiss 
Popidar Gazette, published under the authority of the Directory 
of the revolutionary government, and intended as a means of 
extending the educational and political propaganda of the revo- 
lution. Throughout these years from 1 780-1 798 Pestalozzi 
produced many articles, some on social reform subjects, but 
most on education. The fundamental thought of all, whether 
on political or educational subjects, was the same ; namely, 
that social and political reform was to be brought about by 
education — not the current education, but a new education 
that would produce a moral and intellectual reform of the 
people. . This, now, is a truth complementary to the partial one 
upon which he based his work at Neuhof. The earliest one of 
these purely educational works was The Evening Hour of a 
Hermit, published in 1780. This consisted of one hundred 
and eighty propositions which contain the germs of all his 
later more concrete work combined with the naturalistic 
doctrines of Rousseau. Their character can be indicated by 
a selected few, 

" All the pure and beneficent powers of humanity are 
neither the products of art nor the results of chance. They 
are really a natural possession of every man. Their develop- 
ment is a universal human need." " The path of nature, 
which develops the forces of humanity, must be easy and 
open to all ; education, which brings true wisdom and peace 
of mind, must be simple and within everybody's reach." 
" Nature develops all the forces of humanity by exercising 
them; they increase with use." "The exercise of a man's 
faculties and talents, to be profitable, must follow the course 
laid down by nature for the education of humanity." " This 
is why the man, who, in simplicity and innocence, exercises 
his forces and faculties with order, calmness, and steady 
application, is naturally led to true human wisdom ; whereas, 
he who subverts the order of nature, and thus breaks the 
due connection between the different branches of his knowl- 
edge, destroys in himself not only the true basis of knowledge, 



6o4 History of Education 

but the very need of such a basis, and becomes incapable of 
appreciating the advantages of truth." "When. men are 
anxious to go too fast, and are not satisfied with nature's 
development, they imperil their inward strength, and destroy 
the harmony and peace of their souls." " When men rush 
into the labyrinth of words, formulas, and opinions, without 
having gained a progressive knowledge of the realities of life, 
their minds must develop on this one basis, and can have 
no other source of strength." 



The most popular of all his writings, the one that exerted 
the most influence, was his Leonard and Gertrude, the first 
volume of which was published in 1781. Written as a novel, 
it popularized the idea that he initiated in practical reform 
a generation later. This new education was to consist in a 
moral and intellectual development of the child and, in turn, 
was to produce a similar reform in society at large. The 
purpose of the book was to depict the simple village life 
of the people and the great changes caused therein by the 
insight and devotion of a single ignorant woman, Gertrude. 
By her industry and patience and skill in educating their 
children she saves her husband, Leonard, from idleness and 
drink. Neighbors, children, and neighboring families are 
finally brought within the influence of the new ideas; and by 
the simple methods of this peasant woman this new purpose 
in education effects the reform of the entire village. What 
was done in Bonal, Pestalozzi held could be done in every 
village. This was his mission in life: to work out in detail 
the methods of this education that was to effect the regenera- 
tion of society by securing for every child that moral and 
intellectual development which was his natural right and inher- 
itance. Written as a " book for the people " it failed, as a 
matter of course, in reaching the igiiorant masses ; and the 
three succeeding volumes, designed to give the reading public, 
reached by the first, a more detailed knowledge of the new 
education, failed to interest it at all. In reading this simple 



Psychological Tendency in Education 605 

tale it is difficult for one now to understand its popularity and 
influence. But coming in a period of romanticism, it appealed 
to the popular fancy, and in a period of social agitation it 
appealed to the enthusiasm and hopes of the thinking classes. 
Were it not for the germs of the great movement contained 
therein, it would survive now only as a juvenile moral tale. 

While there were many other educational treatises pro- 
duced by him during this period, but one can be noted here. 
That is his Researches into the Course of Natiire in the Devel- 
opment oj the Human Race. Into this brief treatise Pestalozzi 
put three years' labor in the endeavor to give a philosophical 
formulation to his own ideas, which at that time were but a 
restatement of Rousseau's theses. As he possessed neither 
the philosophical insight to state the logic of his own ideas 
or practices, nor the literary skill to improve upon Rousseau, 
he was in this unsuccessful. 

In 1798 there occurred a complete change in Pestalozzi's 
career. Hitherto he, like others, had been theorizing about 
the new education, concerning which he knew little con- 
cretely, and criticising the old — the evils of which were 
patent on every side. He announces, as if by inspiration, 
" I wall turn schoolmaster " ; for he at length realized that 
the way to establish education as the means to social reform 
was to demonstrate in a practical way its efificiency. No 
more remarkable testimony concerning the value and the 
validity of his fundamental educational ideas can be found 
than that this man who did not begin to teach until after 
fifty years of age and who, from the practical point of view, 
failed in every enterprise he undertook in his long life, 
should, after all, have had more influence than any other one 
person in the educational improvement of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. One chief reason for this was that his ideas were the 
results of experimentation. Consequently the truths reached 
were not completed and closed formulas, but rather sugges- 
tions for the guidance of the work of education, which, since 



6o6 History of Education 

the concrete personal elements to be dealt with are never 
fully determinable in advance, must always partake somewhat 
of the nature of experimentation. Where, as it readily could, 
the Pestalozzian influence realized itself in the imposition of 
fixed formulas of procedure, there the least benefit resulted. 
Where spirit and purpose prevailed, it became the germ of 
the broader educational thought and more intelligent practice 
of the latter part of the nineteenth century. But even if 
credit be given to Pestalozzi only for this more restricted 
influence, it is something to have established scientific experi- 
mentation, rather than mere theorizing or mere empiricism, 
as the source of educational truths. 

In the year mentioned, Pestalozzi's connection with the gov- 
ernment publication having ceased, he accepted the charge of 
those children in one of the districts of Switzerland made 
orphans through the massacre of the people by the French 
soldiery. With these orphans at Stanz were first worked out the 
germs of the new educational practices. Here again, as in the 
case of his earlier experience, his fundamental purpose was to 
combine educational activities with handwork. But now he 
saw not only that the two could be carried on together, but that, 
if an approach differing from that of the ordinary schoolroom 
was made, much of the experience that was most valuable for 
mental development came directly from those activities in 
which the children were immediately interested. Pestalozzi's 
own statement of this work is full of the meaning of the new- 
truth. " Here is the principle upon which I acted : Seek 
first to open the heart of the children, and, by satisfying 
their daily needs, mingle love and benevolence with all their 
impressions, experience, and activity, so as to develop these 
sentiments in their hearts ; then to accustom them to knowl- 
edge in order that they may know how to employ their 
benevolence usefully and surely in the circle around them." 
In this, as in all of Pestalozzi's later work, we find the key to 
his educational influence, — the essential to reform is a new 



Psychological Tendejicy in ^ducahd^i 607 

method and new spirit in all educational works. The for- 
tunes of war terminated this experiment in less than a year. 

In the following year Pestalozzi, now a discredited vision- 
ary, was accepted as assistant teacher in the village school at 
Burgdorf. In the elementary school of this village, Pesta- 
lozzi taught for more than a year with slight satisfaction to 
the villagers, who saw little commendable in his rather 
erratic innovations. But for the cause of educational reform 
this brief experience was fraught with great importance, for 
here was first worked out the significance of the object lesson, 
not as a mere means of gaining knowledge of the word, or 
even of the thing, as with Comenius and earlier reformers, 
but as a means of mental development. Here Pestalozzi 
first announced his great aim, " I wish to psychologize edu- 
cation." The recognition that the public failed to give was 
furnished by some friends among the progressive officials of 
revolutionary and hence philanthropic bent, and by some 
schoolmasters, appreciative of the great significance of these 
new ideas, who now attached themselves as assistants. To 
these Pestalozzi owed the avoidance of complete failure and 
the educational world the carrying to a successful issue of 
this first stage in modern educational reform. A private 
school, partially endowed by the government, was estab- 
lished, where for some four years experimentation, both with 
the pupils and teachers along the line of the new thought, 
continued. 

The great purpose now clearly held before him was to an- 
swer the fundamental educational question which was a chal- 
lenge to the existing education respecting its purpose and its 
means. These inquiries were to determine what knowledge 
and what practical abilities were necessary for the child, and 
how they could be furnished to the child or obtained by 
him. This period produced Pestalozzi's most systematic work 
— How Gertrude Teaches her Children (1801) — which was 
an attempt to answer the above questions. At least it is the 



oo< '"^ History of Education 

most definite answer Pestalozzi himself gives to these ques- 
tions. But its value lies more in its suggestiveness and in 
its indication of the fundamental problems with whieh the 
author was struggling than in the specific answers it furnishes 
to the questions raised. This work at Burgdorf, directed 
both toward the education of the children and the training 
of teachers, was watched with great interest by publicists and 
philanthropists, was assisted by the government, and was 
widely discussed through pamphlet and magazine contro- 
versy. But again withdrawal of the meager though neces- 
sary support, on account of political changes, together with 
disagreement among the directors of the institute themselves, 
led to its abandonment, and Pestalozzi withdrew to Yverdun 
for his last and longest experiment. 

Among this French-speaking people, with whom he 
believed his reform would make more rapid headway, 
Pestalozzi labored for twenty years. Here, more than hith- 
erto, the work was directed toward the training of teachers 
and direct experimentation in reforming educational practices. 
Text-books were compiled, numerous explanatory and contro- 
versial articles were published, students were trained for vari- 
ous European countries, and visitors were welcomed from 
almost every civilized people. The object of the work was 
a further definition of the problems raised at Burgdorf and 
the propagation of these school reforms. But the task of 
managing the institute, not to mention that of conducting a 
world reform, was too great for the old enthusiast, who was 
past sixty before the institute was founded and who never 
possessed the ability for practical managemicnt. The imprac- 
ticability of the founder, together with the dissensions, both 
private and public, of his assistants, did much to discredit 
his work of reform, and render it profitless to study his 
life further in detail. 

Influence of Pestalozzi on Education, {a) As to Purpose. — 
Throughout his long life Pestalozzi was moved by a convic- 



Psychological Tendency hi Education 609 

tion that we have found to be common to most educational 
reformers since the early Renaissance; namely, that education 
is to become the chief means to social reform. This idea, how- 
ever, possessed a peculiar significance during the latter half 
of the eighteenth century, since that was a period in which 
the greatest variety of remedies for social evils were advo- 
cated. New rehgions, no religions ; new governments, no 
governments; new societies, no society— all were suggested. 
Socialism, anarchism, communism, pure individualism, atheism, 
deism, naturalism — all found their advocates. Every form of 
Utopia found its devotee, while the practical means chosen 
by all was revolution. Throughout all this period of turmoil, 
especially during the period of his literary activity, the voice 
of Pestalozzi in suggesting education — a new education — as 
the means for social regeneration became clearer and clearer. 
Few among those that in previous periods had held edu- 
cation to be the means for social regeneration had considered 
that it was necessary for the masses. Such as had, were 
chiefly the Reformation leaders, who viewed the entire subject 
from the religious point of view. Even those, such as Come- 
nius, who took a broader point of view and held that the 
education of the masses in every phase of knowledge was 
desirable from reasons other than the purely religious, were 
far from the thought of Pestalozzi. The latter had in view 
an entirely different conception of education — one that 
had little or nothing to do with the comprehensive encyclo- 
pedism of Comenius, but that related solely to the develop- 
ment of the child's nature, mental, moral, physical. In other 
words, what Rousseau had demanded in a theoretic way, 
for one individual. Entile, Pestalozzi demanded for every 
child, no matter how poor and humble his surroundings or 
how limited his capacities. Hence Pestalozzi's demand for 
universal education of the masses possesses an entirely 
new significance, — a significance only grasped when one 
conceives the difference between the old conception of educa- 



6io History of Education 

tion and that which he held. The pecuHar turn which Pesta- 
lozzi gave to Rousseau's doctrine concerning, the detrimental 
influence of the arts and sciences was that through their iden- 
tification with education, popular education comes to be a 
mere form without any resulting benefits for the masses, 
while the learned classes grow into greater knowledge, power, 
and indifference to the needs of the masses. In his How 
Gertrude Teaches he says : — 

" Europe, with its system of popular teaching, has fallen 
into error, or rather it has lost its way. On one side it has 
risen to an immense height in the sciences and arts; on the 
other it has lost the whole foundation of natural culture for 
the bulk of the people. No part of the world has risen so 
high ; no part has sunk so low. Our continent resembles 
the great image mentioned by the prophet ; its golden head 
touches the clouds, but popular instruction, which should bear 
this head, is like the feet of clay. In Europe the culture of 
the people has become vain babbling, as fatal to faith as to 
true knowledge ; an instruction of mere words which contains 
a little dreaming and show which cannot give us the calm wis- 
dom of faith and love, but, on the contrary, lead to unbelief 
and superstition, to selfishness and hardness. It is indispu- 
table that the mania for words and books, which has absorbed 
everything in our popular instruction, has been carried so far 
that we cannot possibly remain long as we are. Everything 
convinces me that the only means of preserving us from re- 
maining at a civil, moral, and religious dead level is to aban- 
don the superficiality, the piecemeal, and infatuation of our 
popular instruction, and to recognize intuition as the true 
fountain of knowledge." 

ijj) The New Meaning of Education. — In defining the new 
conception Pestalozzi started, as did Rousseau, with the con- 
trast between the accepted educational usages and the natural 
development of the child. Speaking of children in their early 
years he says : — 

" Their power and their experience both are great at this 
age ; but our unpsychological schools are essentially only arti- 



Psychological Tendejtcy hi Education 6 1 1 

ficial stifling machines for destroying all the results of the 
power and experience that nature herself brings to life in 
them. You know it, my friend. But for a moment picture 
to yourself the horror of this murder. We leave children up 
to their fifth year in the full enjoyment of nature ; we let every 
impression of nature work upon them ; they feel their power ; 
they already know full well the joy of unrestrained liberty and 
all its charms. The free natural bent which the sensuous 
happy wild thing takes in his development has in them al- 
ready taken its most decided direction. And after they have 
enjoyed this happiness of sensuous life for 'five whole years, 
we make all nature round them vanish before their eyes ; 
tyrannically stop the delightful course of their unrestrained 
freedom ; pen them up like sheep, whole flocks huddled to- 
gether in stinking rooms; pitilessly chain them for hours, 
days, weeks, months, years, to the contemplation of unnatural 
and unattractive letters, and, contrasted with their former con- 
dition, to a maddening course of life." 

The connection between nature, education, and instruction 
is yet more clearly indicated in the following : — 

" Whatever, therefore, man may attempt to do by his tuition, 
he can do no more than assist in the effort which the child 
makes for his own development. To do this so that the im- 
pressions made upon him may always be commensurate to the 
growth and character of the faculties already unfolded, and, 
at the same time, in harmony with them, is the great secret 
of education. The knowledge to which the child is to be led 
by instruction must, therefore, necessarily be subjected to a 
certain order of succession, the beginning of which must be 
adapted to the first unfolding of his powers, and the progress 
kept exactly parallel to that of his development." 

Or again : — ■ 

" Sound education stands before me symbolized by a tree 
planted near fertilizing waters. A little seed, which contains 
the design of the tree, its form and its properties, is placed in 
the soil. The whole tree is an uninterrupted chain of organic 
parts, the plan of which existed in its seed and root. Man is 
similar to the tree. In the new-born child are hidden those 



6i2 History of Education 

faculties which are to unfold during life. The individual and 
separate organs of his being form themselves gradually into 
unison, and build up humanity in the image of God. The 
education of man is a purely moral result. It is not the educa- 
tor who puts new powers and faculties into man, and imparts 
to him breath and life. He only takes care that no untoward 
influence shall disturb nature's march of development. The 
moral, intellectual, and practical powers of man must be nur- 
tured within himself and not from artificial substitutes. Thus, 
faith must be cultivated by our own act of believing, not by 
reasoning about faith ; love, by our own act of loving, not by 
fine words about love ; thought, by our own act of thinking, 
not by merely appropriating the thoughts of other men ; and 
knowledge, by our own investigation, not by endless talk about 
the results of art and science." 



These somewhat extended quotations give Pestalozzi's con- 
ception of education more clearly than would a similar amount 
of exposition. Education is but the organic development of 
the individual, — mental, moral, physical. This development 
comes in each of these phases by doing, through activities initi- 
ated by spontaneous desire for action, which leads to growth, 
and along lines predetermined by the nature of the organism, — 
the child. It does not come by forms of procedure established 
by custom. To quote the definition in its more traditional 
form, education is the natural, progressive, harmonious de- 
velopment of all the powers and faculties of the human being. 

Starting from the new purpose that Pestalozzi gave to edu- 
cation, the elevation of the common people from their igno- 
rance, squalor, and misery, he was compelled to give to it a 
new meaning. His early experiences taught him that their 
material degradation could not be removed save by the 
removal of the intellectual and moral poverty and depravity. 
The removal of this, or rather the growth of the individuals 
composing the submerged portion of humanity into the moral 
and intellectual maturity for which they as well as the chosen 
few were destined, constituted education. He found in each 



Psychological Tendency m Education 613 

individual the germs of all the powers, sentiments, faculties, 
aptitudes that were needed for their successful, satisfactory, 
and useful participation in their walks of life and in the satis- 
faction of the needs of society. Directed, as it was, toward 
giving the child possession of forms or of merely acquainting 
him with them, — forms of religious thought through the cate- 
chism, forms of thought through the mere abihty to read words, 
forms of practical or scientific procedure through the mere 
memoriter knowledge of mathematics, or the forms of culture 
through the dead languages, — the existing education did not 
accomplish this adjustment. Real education was to do none 
of this, but something infinitely greater : to develop in the child 
the elements of power implanted there by nature, by furnishing 
to him in appropriately selected and graded series the mate- 
rials of experience needed as a basis for the natural exercise 
of these capacities. The novelty of all this was not in the 
new conception of the nature and powers of man, their 
development and manner of action, but in the application of 
this to education, — or more distinctively, — to the school- 
room. The school-teacher has to deal with these powers of 
action directly and his function is to furnish appropriate 
means and material for activity. Pestalozzi's insistence that / 
there was a natural order in the development of the child's 
mind and that all educational activity should be based upon 
or guided by the knowledge of that growth, is not a preten- 
sion to the accurate knowledge of those laws of the mind's 
activity and development. That degree of finality was only 
claimed for him by his disciples of a later generation. But. 
his is the honor of having first insisted upon the necessity of 
this knowledge as a basis for instruction, a view which later 
generations have accepted in their continued endeavor to 
increase this knowledge which the great reformer sought. 
This general idea of growth and of organic development 
through activity had been formulated by Lamarck into a 
general philosophy or scientific hypothesis, and had received 



6 14 History of Education 

many special applications. It was Pestalozzi's work to apply 
it to the schoolroom, and to attempt to organize activities 
appropriate both to intellectual and to moral development. 
It is in this work, then, a work specifically related to method, 
that Pestalozzi exerted his greatest influence, and it is in this 
connection that he merits the greatest praise. 

{c) Injinence on Ediicational Means and Method. — The 
significance of the Pestalozzian reform in method can be ap- 
preciated only when the character of the contemporary school- 
room is kept in mind. In the village school in Burgdorf, 
where Pestalozzi was barely tolerated, even for a few months, 
as assistant, the master was the ignorant village shoemaker, 
who "kept" school in his shop and cobbled meanwhile. 
Kruesi, Pestalozzi's ablest assistant, gives this account of his 
first appointment as teacher, an office for which he had no 
preparation, though, as later experience showed, one for 
which he possessed great natural aptitude : — 

"The day of examination arrived. One candidate, older 
than myself, exhibited his learning. He was ordered to read 
the first chapter of the New Testament and write some lines, 
— a task which took him half an hour to perform. I was 
called in. The examiner placed before me a genealogical 
table from Adam to Abraham, as a reading exercise. He 
then handed me an unmended quill pen, desiring me to write 
something. ' But what shall I write .'* ' said I. ' Write the 
Lord's Prayer, or whatever you like,' was the reply. As I 
had no knowledge, either of parts of speech or orthography, 
or of punctuation [he explained elsewhere that he scattered 
capital letters at equal distances thinking they were for orna- 
ment], the result of my scribbling may be imagined. This 
was all the examination, and after it we retired. When we 
were recalled, the chairman informed us that neither had 
been found overburdened with learning ; that one of us was 
better in reading, the other in writing ; but, that since my 
rival was already forty years old, while I was only eighteen, 
they thought I would sooner acquire the necessary knowledge. 
Moreover, since my dwelling [the town had no schooihouse j 



Psychological Tendency in Education 6 1 5 

was better adapted for a school than that of my competitor, they 
had appointed me schoolmaster. No doubt I felt happy at 
this unexpected decision, though I had no reason to be very 
proud of my salary, which was only one dollar per week, 
while my vanquished opponent was appointed policeman, 
with one and a half dollars per week." 

So, we find the village watchman, the bricklayer, the rope 
maker, the crippled soldier, the widow, or any one whose 
occupation did not consume all his time or furnish him with 
complete living, was chosen as schoolmaster. More fre- 
quently the convenient house which they occupied was of 
greater importance than their qualification as teachers. 
When one turns to the character of the work of the school, 
the reasons for this can be readily understood. The work of 
the two schools mentioned above, and, with possible slight 
alterations, that of all the regions around, consisted of a 
primer (spelling and name book), a reader (the beginnings 
of Christian doctrine), the Heidelberg catechism and the 
Psalter. Besides learning to read, that is, the mere ability to 
recognize forms of words, the work of the school was pure 
memorizing of theological or religious texts. This constituted 
both moral and religious education. The method in which 
this work was done is thus described by Diesterweg : — 

" Each child read by himself ; the simultaneous method 
was not known. One after another stepped up to the table 
where the master sat. He pointed out one letter at a time, 
and named it ; the child named it after him ; he drilled him 
in recognizing and remembering each. They then took letter 
by letter of the words, and by getting acquainted with them 
in this way, the child gradually learned to read. This was a 
difficult method for him, a very difficult one. Years usually 
passed before any facility had been acquired ; many did not 
learn in four years. It- was imitative and purely mechanical 
labor on both sides. To understand what was read was seldom 
thought of. The syllables were pronounced with equal force, 
and the reading was without grace or expression. Where 
it was possible, but unnaturally and mechanically, learning 



6i6 History of Education 

by heart was practiced. The children drawled out texts of 
Scripture, Psalms, and the contents of the catechism from the 
beginning to end ; short questions and long answers alike, all 
in the same monotonous manner. Anybody with delicate 
ears who heard the sound once would remember it all his 
life long. There are people yet living, who were taught in 
that unintelligent way, who can corroborate these statements. 
Of the actual contents of the words whose sounds they had 
thus barely committed to memory little by little, the children 
knew absolutely almost nothing. They learned superficially 
and understood superficially. Nothing really passed into their 
minds ; at least nothing during their school years. The in- 
struction in singing was no better. The master sang to them 
the psalm tunes over and over, until they could sing them, or 
rather screech them, after him. Such was the condition of 
instruction in our schools during the sixteenth, seventeenth, 
and two thirds of the eighteenth centuries ; confined to one 
or two studies, and those taught in the most imperfect and 
mechanical way." 

This, in Pestalozzi's view, was not education in the true 
sense of the word. " A man who has only word wisdom is 
less susceptible to truth than a savage. This use of mere 
words produces men who believe they have reached the goal, 
because their whole life has been spent in talking about it, 
but who never ran toward it, because no motive impelled 
them to make the effort ; hence I come to the conviction 
that the fundamental error — the blind use of words in mat- 
ters of instruction — must be extirpated before it is possible 
to resuscitate life with truth," 

This condemnation of the existing school work forms the 
most often repeated idea in Pestalozzi's writings, and if he had 
accomplished nothing but the negative destructive work, he 
would hold an important place in the history of schools. 
While this was the character of the schools of Switzerland and 
of Germany, those of other countries were no better, if as good. 
That such was the condition of the average district school in 
the United States well into the nineteenth century and of the 



Psychological Tendency in Education 617 

average elementary school in England much later is well 
known. 

The character of the school which Pestalozzi would substi- 
tute for this has been indicated. The school was to be a 
transformed home, approximating the same relationships, 
duplicating the same spirit, seeking the same ends; that is, 
the moral and intellectual development and the material 
betterment of the child. It is the peculiar excellence of 
Pestalozzi that he was the first to make great progress in 
indicating the practical way in which these new educational 
ideas could be realized. But in seeking the essentials of this 
new method, we must clearly distinguish between the prin- 
ciples fundamental to the new practices and the particular 
form, often crude and experimental, sometimes erroneous or 
absurd, which was given to these principles in the early 
gropings of Pestalozzi and his assistants. 

The essential thought of the Pestalozzian method is com- 
paratively simple. It is based on the fundamental conception 
of what education is ; namely, the continuous development of 
the mind through appropriate exercise so selected that there 
will result a harmonious and progressive functioning of the 
mind in all its capacities of action or expression. The 
result at any stage should be a symmetrical and complete or- 
ganic life. The fundamental endeavor was to analyze knowl- 
edge in any particular line into its simplest elements, as these 
present themselves naturally to the attention of the child. 
These were to be acquired not simply in their form, but in their 
real inner meaning by the process of observation, or sense 
impression (intuition, it was often called), and developed by a 
progressive series of exercises graded by almost imperceptible 
degrees into a continuous chain. Such exercises were to be 
based primarily upon- the study of objects rather than upon 
the study of words. The object lesson, then, was the core 
of the method; but the object lesson not as often employed for 
the mere purpose of obtaining a knowledge of the object, or 



6i8 History of Education 

even of developing powers of observation. Its real use was as 
a basis for the entire mental development of the child. This 
training in observation was the beginning only. 

"Meanwhile," he says, "the consciousness began daily to 
develop in me that it must be absolutely impossible to remedy 
school evils as a whole if one cannot succeed in reducing 
the mechanical formulas of instruction to those eternal laws, 
according to which the human mind rises from mere sense 
impressions to clear ideas. The child learns — that is, de- 
velops mentally — through his own activities, and only 
through impressions, experiences, not through words ; though, 
to be sure, these experiences must be clearly expressed in 
words, or otherwise there arises the same danger that char- 
acterizes the dominant word teaching, — that of attributing 
entirely erroneous ideas to words." 

In their purpose and spirit at least, these are the essentials 
that have entered into all subsequent educational reform. The 
particular form is incidental and has been vastly improved since 
these earlier efforts. 

It is impossible in a brief space to indicate the details of 
special methods ; the greater portion of Pestalozzian litera- 
ture is given up to this. A few indications of immediate 
general changes must suffice for fuller presentation. The 
great emphasis upon arithmetic in elementary education is 
partly due to his insistence upon the importance of number. 
Especially " mental " arithmetic, which indicated an "intui- 
tive " knowledge of numerical relationships instead of a mere 
knowledge of rules, acquired an important place in the school. 
All arithmetical relations were reduced to the fundamental 
processes of the combination and separation of units, addi- 
tion and subtraction. The object was to give the child a 
thorough understanding of the properties and proportions of 
numbers, and not merely formal methods of " ciphering." 
Instruction in numbers was connected with objects and v/ith 
the play or other activities of the child. Greater success was 



Psychological Tendency in Education 619 

reached and greater improvement in the method of the schools 
was made in the instruction in this subject than in any other. 

Great attention was paid to drawing, of which subject writ- 
ing formed a part. In both writing and drawing the child, 
starting with a mastery of simple elements, straight lines, 
angles, curves, by slow processes of combinations through 
thorough exercises, was led to a real mastery of these arts 
through the synthetic process, and not by mere imitation. 
In fact, all mere memory and purely imitative processes 
were theoretically at least to be eliminated from the school 
in favor of this training in " intuitive " or vitalized obser- 
vation. 

In the language studies similar advances were made, though 
with the usual accompanying errors. The old method of 
letter spelling and reading was replaced by the phonetic and 
syllabic method. Great effort was put forth to reduce this to 
its simplest form, with much greater success, from the nature 
of the languages, in German than in French and in English. 
Nevertheless, the endless and meaningless repetition of ele- 
mental syllables, " ab, ib, ob, ub," etc., that formerly con- 
stituted so large a part of spelling and reading books, was 
sanctioned by Pestalozzi's methods. A notable feature was 
the use of objects as the basis of language lessons in 
all their phases in substitution for the purely meaningless 
drill in words which were beyond the understanding or in- 
terest of the child. 

The methods of geography were similarly transformed, at 
least in theory; though here, as in other subjects, many schools 
yet await the arrival of the century-old reform. The school 
yard or the village was to furnish the simple elements of this 
subject and these were to be combined and expanded, step by 
step, until the structure of the whole earth and its relation to 
man were developed from the simple elements. Geography 
was made the basis of, or at least closely connected with, 
instruction in nature studies (natural history) and agriculture. 



620 History of Education 

In fact the nature-study movement, being closely related to 
object study, was an outgrowth of these new methods, though 
as in most other subjects great advance has been made since 
then in special methods and in the very conception of this 
study. Singing and gymnastics formed important parts of 
the newly organized schoolroom activities ; the latter was a 
complete innovation, the former was of an entirely different 
character from that previously dominated by religious spirit. 
But it was not for proficiency in music that this great empha- 
sis was made, but for its influence on the feelings and on moral 
training. In general, the arrangement of all modern text- 
books is a direct though not necessarily an immediate out- 
growth of Pestalozzi's efforts at analyzing the subject into 
its simplest elements and proceeding then by a gradual in- 
crease in the complexity of the material to build up a con- 
nected and symmetrical understanding of the subject. The 
old method of beginning with a mastery of rules and princi- 
ples as in arithmetic, of the rules of abstract form in language, 
or of most general relations, as in geography, history, and the 
natural sciences, has been gradually superseded. 

Morf, one of Pestalozzi's ablest disciples, summarizes the 
general principles of these methods as follows : — 

(i) Observation, or sense-perception (intuition), is the basis 
of instruction. (2) Language should always be linked with 
observation (intuition), i.e. with an object or content. (3) The 
time for learning is not the time for judgment and criticism. 

(4) In any branch teaching should begin with the simplest 
elements and proceed gradually according to the develop- 
ment of the child, that is, in psychologically connected order. 

(5) Sufficient time should be devoted to each point of the 
teaching in order to secure the complete mastery of it by the 
pupil. (6) Teaching should aim at development, and not 
at dogmatic exposition. (7) The teacher should respect the 
individuality of the pupil. (8) The chief end of elementary 
teaching is not to impart knowledge and talent to the learner, 
but to develop and increase the powers of his intelHgence, 



Psychological Tendency in Education 621 



(9) Power must be linked to knowledge, and skill to learn- 
ing. (10) The relation between the teacher and the pupil, 
especially as to discipline, should be based upon and ruled by 
love. (11) Instruction should be subordinate to the higher 
aim of education. 

(^) Inflitence on the General Spirit '^of the Schoolroom. — 
There remains one further point to be noted, — that contained 
in the tenth princi- 
ple stated above. In 
regard to method, 
as Pestalozzi him- 
self stated in an ex- 
aggerated way, 
"half the world" 
was working on the 
same problem. The 
new purpose in edu- 
cation was held by 
many others — pub- 
lic men, religious 
leaders, philoso- 
phers, and educators. 
In defining the new 
meaning of educa- 
tion, he was but 
making more ex- 
plicit the ideas of 
Rousseau, Basedow, 
and others. His 
peculiar excellence 
was in making evi- 
dent, through all 
his writings and all 
his work, that a new spirit must pervade the schoolroom, 
that both teacher and pupil must breathe a new atmosphere. 




A Typical German Schoolroom of the 
Eighteenth Century. 



622 



History of Education 



— the atmosphere of the home. What cannot be taken 
away from him is the credit for demonstration from the 
very nature of the educational process that when the end is 
development and not mere acquisition of formal principles, 
the only basis for the relation of teacher and pupil is sym- 
pathy. The contrast is clearly indicated by a comparison of 
accompanying illustrations; one of the typical German schools 




Pestalozzi in his Schoolroom at Stanz. 

before Pestalozzi's time, the other of Pestalozzi's school at 
Stanz. In other lines, more recent times have developed the 
germs of the ideas suggested by the unlettered reformer ; but 
in this one respect, every modern schoolroom is so directly 
indebted to him that he may yet be called, as he was by his 
own teachers and followers, " Father Pestalozzi." 



THE HERBARTIAN MOVEMENT. Its Relation to Pesta- 
lozzianism. — Herbart built upon and supplemented the work 
of Pestalozzi. But he soon reached an elaboration of educa- 



Psychological Tendency m Education 623 

tional thought far beyond that of Pestalozzi. The latter 
insisted always in his theoretical statements that instruction 
was to lead from sense-perception to " clear ideas." But his 
practical work went Httle beyond the formulation of the train- 
ing in sense-perception through exercises in observation. 
Except as he accomplished it with a few children through 
the genius of his own personality, he did not show either 
theoretically or practically how mental assimilation and 
growth take place from this starting point, or how moral 
character was to be made the outcome. Herbart carried 
this further and showed how the product of sense-perception 
could be converted into ideas, through the apperceptive pro- 
cess, and how knowledge in turn could thus be made to bear 
upon moral character through the processes of instruction. 
As Pestalozzi would substitute his method for the formal 
verbal methods in memory training of the existing schools, 
making this latter method wholly subordinate to methods of 
training in sense-perception, so Herbart would use Pesta- 
lozzi's method merely as an initial one. In a discussion of 
the Pestalozzian method, Herbart says: — 

" The whole field of actual and possible sense-perception is 
open to the Pestalozzian method ; its movements in it will 
grow constantly freer and larger. Its peculiar merit consists 
in having laid hold more boldly and more zealously than any 
former method of the duty of building up the child's mind, of 
constructing in it a definite experience in the light of clear 
sense-perception ; not acting as if the child had already an ex- 
perience, but taking care that he gets one ; by not chatting 
with him as though in him, as in an adult, there already were 
a need for communicating and elaborating his acquisitions, 
but, in the very first place, giving him that which later on can 
be, and is to be, discussed. The Pestalozzian method, there- 
fore, is by no means qualified to crowd out any other method, 
but to prepare the way for it. It takes care of the earliest 
age that is at all capable of receiving instruction. It treats 
it with the seriousness and simplicity which are appropriate 
when the very first raw materials are to be procured. But we 



624 History of Education 

can be no more content with it than we can regard the human 
mind as a dead tablet on which the letters remain as origi- 
nally written down." 

Consequently, in one other main point, Herbart differs 
radically from Pestalozzi, again by way of addition. As 
Pestalozzi made the presentation of the physical world 
through sense-perception the chief aim of instruction, if not 
of education, Herbart made the moral (aesthetic) presentation 
of the universe the chief end of education. Sense-percep- 
tion is no longer sufficient. " Experience, human-converse, 
and instruction taken all together constitute the presentation 
of the universe." As a result, tjie emphasis which Pesta- 
lozzianism' tended to place on arithmetic, geography, and the 
nature studies is replaced in Herbartianism by an emphasis 
on pure mathematics on the one hand and more especially on 
the other by that on the classical languages, hterature, and 
history. 

At one other point Herbart's work takes its initiative from 
Pestalozzi's. The latter reiterated his purpose of " psycholo- 
gizing education"; but while rejecting the old psychology 
he did not and could not construct any system of his own. 
Herbart did quite as notable work in this line as in construc- 
tive educational thought. However, his psychological ideas 
much sooner served their purpose than have the educational, 
and gave way to more accurate knowledge. 

In general, Herbart's work was the antithesis of Pestalozzi's, 
in that it was logical and philosophical in character, while 
Pestalozzi's possessed no logical form or system and little 
definitely formulated philosophical basis. The one possessed 
the comprehensive view and calm logic of the philosopher ; 
the other the intense emotionalism and strong purpose of the 
reformer working toward immediate betterment, though with 
no adequate view of the ultimate end. 

Life and Works of John Frederick Herbart (i 776-1 841). — 
There is little in the life activities of the man that throws 



Psychological Tendency in Education 625 

light upon his educational doctrines, and hence little that can 
concern us here. Passing through the traditional educational 
course of the gymnasium and university, he gave evidence of 
ability and originality at every point. At the age of twenty- 
one he left the university for a three years' experience as 
private tutor, from which he formulated much of his educa- 
tional doctrine. He later enunciated the belief that any real 
knowledge of the psychology of education can be gained, not 
from the study of children in masses and from brief acquaint- 
ance, but only from a prolonged intimate study of the mental 
development of a very few individuals. He returned later to 
study and then to give instruction in philosophy and in edu- 
cation in the University of Gottingen. Here and at the 
University of Konigsberg he spent the remainder of his life. 
At the latter place he established his pedagogical seminar 
with a practice school attached, the forerunner of the univer- 
sity type of instruction and experimentation in the subject of 
education. While as a member of school commissions he 
took some part in educational reiorm, his life for the most 
part was spent in investigation, lecturing, and publication. 
Referring to his approach to educational problems, he says 
in one of his essays, — Observations on a Pedagogical Essay : 

" I have for twenty years employed metaphysics and mathe- 
matics, and side by side with them self-observation, experi- 
ence, and experiments, merely to find the foundations of true 
psychological insight. And the motive for these not exactly 
toilless investigations has been and is, in the main, my con- 
viction that a large part of the enormous gaps in our peda- 
gogical knowledge results from lack of psychology, and that 
we must first have this science — nay, that we must first of 
all remove the mirage which to-day goes by the name of 
psychology — before we shall be able to determine with some 
certainty concerning even a single instruction period what in 
it was done aright and what amiss." 

Herbart's Psychology. — This, then, is Herbart's great con- 
tribution to education. The movement which Locke besran 



626 History of Education 

in making the child the center of educational endeavor and 
pedagogical theory ; which Rousseau established in general 
form through his brilliant critical and destructive work in the 
form of investigative literature ; which Pestalozzi brought 
down to the schoolroom and made concrete in the hands of 
every teacher ; that movement Herbart made permanent by 
giving it an actual scientific basis in place of the imaginative 
one of Rousseau and the empirical one of Pestalozzi. We 
are here concerned only with the main educational applications, 
not with an exposition of Herbart's psychology, which at 
most points has received development and modification with 
the investigation of the intervening century, and at many 
important points has been entirely superseded. 

The fundamental point is that he established educational 
work upon the basis of a unified mental life and development. 
As previously noted, the psychology prevailing even in the nine- 
teenth century — - popular even to-day — was the Aristotelian 
" faculty " psychology, but slightly modified even by modern 
thought. The soul was endowed with higher and lower 
capacities, entirely distinct, each class of mental phenomena 
being considered as the product of the appropriate faculty. 
The more important were those of knowledge, feeling, and 
will, which were in turn divided into an elaborate system of 
capacities or sub-faculties. With this diversity of mental life 
as a basis, the work of the school possessed a similar diversity 
of aims, for each separate faculty demanded its appropriate 
and distinct training through some form of discipline (see 
Chapter IX). In place of this Herbart substituted the con- 
ception that the soul is a unity, not endowed with intuitive or 
inborn faculties, but a blank at birth, possessing but one 
power, — that of entering into relation with its environment 
through the nervous system. Through these relations the 
mind is furnished with its primary "presentations" of sense- 
perception ; and from these the whole mental life is developed. 
The interaction of these presentations lead through generaU- 



Psychological Tendency hi Education 627 

zation to concepts, and by similar processes of interaction to 
acts of judgment and reasoning. What the teacher has to 
work with is a mass of presentations, coming from two main 
sources, — experience, contact with nature ; and intercourse, 
contact with society. Through the expansion of the one 
original power the teacher has to develop knowledge from 
experiences and sympathy from intercourse, by processes 
which are to be noted in the following sections. 

The mind or soul is built up, acquires a content, not through 
the development of inherent faculties, but through presenta- 
tions, — through ideas resulting from its own experiences. It 
is inherently neither good nor bad, but develops one way or 
the other according to external influences, that is according 
to what it receives in the way of presentations and the man- 
ner of their combinations. Two corollaries of tremendous 
importance to education follow: (i) The chief characteristic 
of the mind is its power of assimilation; (2) education, which 
determines what presentations the mind receives, and also the 
manner in which they are combined into higher mental pro- 
cesses, is the chief determining force in shaping the mind and 
character. 

Herbart's educational doctrines are thus founded upon this 
assimilative function of the mind, — apperception. So far as 
the immediate importance of this doctrine to the teacher is 
concerned it is immaterial, as ha^ often been pointed out, 
whether one agrees with Herbart in rejecting all inherent 
constitutive powers of the mind or not, for such original 
powers are beyond control, and the best that the teacher can 
do under any circumstances is to direct the development of 
the mind through control of this assimilative process. From 
this point of view De Garmo thus states the work of the 
teacher: — 

" His primary function is to impart knowledge in such a 
way that it can be most rapidly, securely, and profitably assim- 
ilated, and this is the problem of concrete apperception. 



628 History of Education 

Whether the mind be a germ or a series of germs to be devel- 
oped, or whether it is a structure to be erected, the process is 
still the same from the teacher's standpoint. He must know 
something of the child's previous knowledge and interests in 
order to utilize them ; he must select his materials of instruc- 
tion with respect to ultimate purposes and the pupil's compre- 
hending powers ; he must arrange the subject-matter, not only 
with respect to the pupil's acquired experience, but also with 
respect to that which he is going to acquire, i.e. the studies 
must be brought into the best coordinate relation to one 
another, and he must adapt his teaching processes so as to 
secure the quickest apprehension and the longest retention of 
the matter taught. All this has to do with the acquisition of 
new experience upon the basis of that already acquired." 

Apperception, then, — the assimilation of ideas by means of 
ideas already acquired — is the basal psychological principle 
of Herbart when applied to education ; the theoretical expo- 
sition of this idea is his chief work ; its practical elaboration, 
that of his followers. 

Conception and Purpose of Education. — Herbart derived his 
conception of education from philosophy as he derived its aim 
from ethics. On the one hand he opposed determinism or 
fatalism, which rendered education impossible or at least 
mechanical, since character according to this view is shaped 
by forces entirely beyond control. On the other hand he 
opposed the doctrine of the transcendental freedom of the will, 
which made moral education useless, since according to this 
view the will chooses entirely independent of such would-be 
determining influences. The will, then, is not any independ- 
ent faculty of the mind that can originate actions that are 
independent of ideas or thought processes, but it is a func- 
tioning of the mind, growing out of and wholly dependent 
upon the ideas or presentations possessed by the mind. This 
conception of the will is fundamental and must be kept in 
mind throughout any consideration of Herbart's doctrines. 
The will is the product of action or experience, not, as usually 



Psychological Tendency in Education 629 

held, the determining cause of action. The apperceptive pro- 
cess is fundamental, because ideas lead to action, action 
determines character. The aim of education, according to 
Herbart, is ethical. " The one and the whole work of edu- 
cation may be summed up in the concept, — morality," is the 
opening sentence of the y^sthetic Presentation. Again, "The 
term 'virtue' expresses the whole purpose of education," is a 
statement in his Educational Doctrines. To him virtue was 
" the idea of inner freedom which has developed into an 
abiding actuality in an individual." That is, it is an evolu- 
tionary product in each individual, resulting from a cumulative 
series of experiences, because each relationship calls forth an 
independent judgment of approval or disapproval. Since 
these judgments are without proof, but spring immediately 
from a contemplation of the relationship and are thus like 
those of taste, Herbart called them aesthetic judgments. 
His first philosophical treatise on education is entitled The 
AUstJietic Presentation of the Universe as the C I lie f Aim of Edu- 
cation. Herbart, carrying Pestalozzi's analysis of the alpha- 
bet of perception — number, form, language — much further, 
found the necessity for various other elements, notably those 
of taste and obligation. Rather, he combined the two under 
the norm of what is not necessarily so, but what ought to be. 
These are called ccstJietic presentations. Such presentations 
include "the fitting, the beautiful, the moral, the just; in 
one word, that which in its perfect state pleases after perfect 
contemplation." To develop this attitude of preference for 
that which constitutes " inner freedom " into an " abiding ac- 
tuality in the individual" is the chief aim of education. The 
process of doing this constitutes the "aesthetic presentation 
of the universe," through "experience, human converse, and 
instruction." 

Herbart's analysis of virtue, or of moral character, went 
further ; it was not left in formal terms, but was reduced to 
five moral relationships or ideas. The fundamental one was 



630 History of Education 

that of inner freedom — the harmony between the volition 
or desire on the one hand and insight and conviction on the 
other. To this were added efficiency, or perfection (the 
balance or harmony of the Greeks); benevolence, or good 
will; justice; and equity, or retribution. These individual 
elements have their social counterparts : that of inner free- 
dom in the idea of an ideal society, that of efficiency in 
the system of culture, the idea of benevolence in the system 
of government, that of justice in the system of law, that of 
equity in the system of rewards and wages. As elsewhere, so 
here, Herbart establishes a unity between the ideals of indi- 
vidual character and the ethics of social life. These rela- 
tionships furnish the content of morality. The work of 
education then is to form character " which in the battle of 
life shall stand unmoved, not through the strength of its 
external action, but on the firm and enduring foundations 
of its moral insight and enlightened will." 

The nature of the aim of education having been deter- 
mined, there arises a second point in Herbart's theory con- 
cerning the nature of education. The concrete work of 
education is (i) to furnish the mind with presentations or 
experiences, and (2) upon the basis of these presentations to 
"complete the circle of thought " through ideas and motiva- 
tion to action. As previously noted, presentations furnish 
the elements out of which the mind is composed ; thus far 
Pestalozzi went. But it is the second point taken in connec- 
tion with the first that is significant in Herbart's doctrine. 
Morality depends upon good will and knowledge ; these in 
turn upon the general enlightenment of the whole man, in 
other words upon the ideas developed from the interac- 
tion of primary presentations. There is no independent 
function of willing in the individual. Action is the result 
of motivation, or desire springing from these presenta- 
tions, influenced by good will springing from the same 
source. Hence the importance of the instruction given by 



Psychological Tendency in Education 631 

the teacher. This is the summary given by Herbart in the 
^Esthetic Presentation : — 

" ^ A making' which the pupil himself discovers when choos- 
ing the good and rejecting the bad — this or nothing is the 
formation of character. This rise to self-conscious personal- 
ity ought without doubt to take place in the mind of the 
pupil himself, and be completed through his own activity ; it 
would be nonsense if the teacher desired to create the real 
essence of the power to do it, and to pour it into the soul of 
his pupil. But to place the power already existent and in 
its nature trustworthy under such conditions that it must in- 
fallibly and surely accomplish this rise — this it is which the 
teacher must look upon as possible, which to attain, to affect, 
to investigate, to forward, and to guide, he must regard as the 
great object of all his efforts." 

The third point in Herbart's theory follows; namely, this 
formation of character, which is dependent upon the shap- 
ing of the will, is determined by educative instruction. This 
follows from two subordinate principles: (i) That these 
presentations which constitute the content of the mind are 
modifiable (through the apperceptive process), and (2) that 
these presentations determine conduct. Conduct and char- 
acter, then, depend primarily upon the sort of presentations 
acquired by the mind, and upon the manner in which they 
are acquired or given ; for the worth of moral as well as 
mental instruction depends upon following the proper psy- 
chological procedure in the building up of the more complex 
presentations. In other words, it is the business of the teacher 
to determine the character and the relation — at least the 
order of sequence — of the presentations that constitute the 
content of the child's mind ; by so doing he shapes the child's 
conduct, and thus his character. If these primary presenta- 
tions have been fully acquired ; if the proper and harmonious 
relations are established between them ; if from the presen- 
tations derived from social intercourse the appropriate sym-' 
pathy or good will has also been developed, then the good 



632 Histoiy of Edtication 

moral character, perforce, is the outcome. In the process of 
rejecting that which is erroneous and evil the pupil finds or 
develops his true self; it is "a making which the pupil him- 
self discovers when choosing the good and rejecting the bad." 
The extent to which the teacher is competent to produce such 
results is thus stated : " The capacity for education, therefore, 
is determined not by the relationship in which various origi- 
nally distinct mental faculties stand to one another, but by 
the relations of ideas already acquired to one another and to 
the physical organism." As previously seen, the character 
of these presentations or the relations of these ideas is modi- 
fiable by education — not, however, the ordinary instruction 
of the schools, against which Herbart strove as did Pestalozzi, 
though he has much less to say about it. Nor is instruction 
in the Pestalozzian sense sufficient. 

" Instruction in the sense of mere information contains no 
guarantee whatever that it will materially counteract faults 
and influence existing groups of ideas that are independent of 
the imparted information. But it is these ideas that education 
must reach ; for the kind and extent of assistance that instruc- 
tion may render to conduct depend upon the hold it has upon 
them." 

Such instruction, then, which modifies the groups of ideas 
already possessed by the mind causing them to form a new 
unity or harmonious series of unities, and which thus deter- 
mines conduct, is alone educative. A volition is but an idea 
that has passed through complete development, in which the 
circle of thought, beginning with interest and ending with 
action, has been completed. This editcative instruction that 
reaches and forms the will or determines volitions, and thus 
shapes character, is the proper work of the school. The 
immediate means to this educative instruction is by arousing 
in the child's mind a " many-sided interest." 

Herbartian Means and Method. Hoiv Instruction caji be 
made Edurative. — The presentation of the doctrine of interest, 



Psychological Tendency in Education 633 

which here must be given in a few words, constitutes the bulk 
of Herbartian literature, both of Herbart's systematic works, 
including the Science of Education and the Outlines of Educa- 
tional Doctrine, and of those of his expositors and followers, 

**The ultimate purpose of instruction is contained in the 
notion, virtue. But in order to realize the final aim another 
and nearer one must be set up. We may term it many- 
sidedness of interest. The word intei'est stands in general for 
that kind of mental activity which it is the business of in- 
struction to incite. Mere information does not suffice; for 
this we think of as supply or store of facts, which a person 
might possess or lack and still remain the same being. But 
he who lays hold of this information and reaches out for more 
takes an interest in it. Since, however, this mental activity is 
varied, we need to add the further determination supplied by 
the term many-sided^ 

This is the approach to the subject in Herbart's latest sys- 
tematic work, in which we find interest defined as a mental 
activity or condition accompanying the process of apper- 
ceiving an idea. 

The relation of this many-sidedness to the individuality of 
the pupil and the work of the teacher is more clearly indi- 
cated in his earlier systematic work. Here the approach is 
as follows : — 

" Every man must have a love for all activity, each must 
be a virtuoso in one. But the particular virtuoship is a 
matter of choice ; on the contrary, the manifold receptivity, 
which can only grow out of manifold beginnings of one's own 
individual efforts, is a matter of education. Therefore we 
call the first part of the educational aim many-sidedness of in- 
terest, which must be distinguished from its exaggeration, — 
dabbling in many things. And since no one object of will, or 
its individual direction, interests us more than any other, we 
add to this, lest weakness may offend us by appearing on the 
side of strength, the predicate, — proportionate many-sided- 
ness." 



634 History of Education 

Since volitions are the results of ideas, it becomes of ut- 
most importance that the pupils should conceive a genuine 
interest in the subjects of study, for only thus do these ideas 
enter into organic relationship with the presentations already 
in the mind ; and to affect character permanently, these in- 
terests must be made abiding. The arousing of interest is not 
merely a means for securing attention in the lesson, it is the 
means for securing the complete appropriation of new ideas 
or presentations through their apperception, so that they enter 
into the constitution of new unities in the child's mind and 
thus form a new and more elaborate and secure basis for con- 
duct. Such interest in the activity remains after the learning 
or apperceiving process is complete ; by making it many-sided 
and proportionate, a harmonious and broad character is pro- 
duced. It is the work of the teacher to blend the individual- 
ity of the pupil into many-sidedness, by the development 
of these many interests and activities through instruction, so 
that character is the result. Individuality is unconscious, 
character is conscious. " There are many individualities ; the 
idea of many-sidedness is but one." But the latter is the 
whole of which the individualities are but parts to be meas- 
ured by the whole. The work of the teacher, starting with 
the individuality of the pupil, is to increase the quantity of 
interests without changing the outlines, the proportion, or the 
form of this many-sidedness. " Only this work undertaken 
with the individual does always change his outlines, as if 
from a certain point in an irregular angular body a sphere 
gradually grew, which was nevertheless incapable of ever 
covering over the extreme projections. The projections, the 
strength of individuality, may remain so far as they do not 
spoil the character; through them the entire outline may take 
this or that form." The work of the teacher then, is to blend 
individuality with many-sidedness and the more thoroughly 
this is done, " the more easily will character assert its sway 
over the individual." 



Psychological Tendency in Education 635 

In order to. accomplish this, the teacher must have a care 
for two things : first, for the selection of the proper materials, 
as the subject-matter of instruction, — materials that will 
furnish the proper presentations both of experience and 
intercourse ; and second, for the proper method of instruc- 
tion so that the presentations are arranged in an order har- 
monious with the psychological development of the child, 
and so that this many-sidedness of interest is an inevitable 
result. 

Correlatio7t of St?idies. — The first of these essentials gives 
rise to the idea of the correlation or unification of studies. 
Herbart himself believed that the HoQieric poems furnished 
the best materials for the education of boys. For here, he 
held, in the youth of the race were to be found the same 
activities and interests that were natural to the youth of the 
individual. This material was to be followed by other por- 
tions of the Greek and Latin literatures, combined with the 
study of certain periods in histor}^ all selected upon the basis 
of progressive complexity of interests and consequently of 
objective materials. This idea, expanded, was given a fuller 
application to education in the form of the culture epoch 
theory by some of Herbart's expositors, notably by Ziller, 
The idea in brief is that the stages of culture in the develop- 
ment of the race are paralleled by the stages of mental devel- 
opment of the individual, just as there is a parallel between 
the embryonic or ontogenetic development of the individual 
organism and the organic or phylogenetic development of 
the species. Consequently, in order to follow the proper 
order in the psychological development of the child, the 
Materials of instruction should be selected and arranged 
according to the stages in the cultural development of the 
race. The culture epoch theory, however, is only incidental 
to the idea of correlation of studies, being but one means for 
determination, not only of the order of arrangement of 
materials, but of their selection as well. The idea of cor- 



636 History of Education 

relation itself demands only that the materials of instruction, 
even if classified into the various school subjects, should 
nevertheless be so organized that they preserve the unity 
vi^hich is essential to the development of a unified conscious- 
ness in the individual In other words, the material should 
be so unified that it shall be wholly apperceived by the child 
as it is presented ; and thus that it should strengthen and not, 
through its lack of connectedness and dissimilarity, disorgan- 
ize or make disproportionate this many-sidedness of interests, 
and consequently weaken the character of the child. 

Herbart and his immediate followers prepared a scheme of 
concentration of studies, that of the unification of all school 
instruction upon one central core study, either literature 
or literature combined with history. Some groups of his 
followers, notably some in this country, have elaborated 
schemes of coordination of studies. Coordination does not 
seek to find one central core study, but accepts a given num- 
ber, — five in the scheme of Commissioner Harris, — selected 
for logical and psychological reasons, as of equal value. 
These are to be organized so that the material is arranged in 
a psychological order and that the unities between the sub- 
jects are made evident and preserved. Various forms of 
concentration, based either on the literary and historical 
studies, or on nature studies, or, where combined with the 
Froebelian influence, on social activities direct, are frequently 
employed in the lower grades. In the higher grades fevv' 
attempts, save at the coordination of studies, have been tried. 

General Method. — Independent of any of these schemes 
is the idea of a general method for the presentation of any 
subject or any portion of a subject; — -a method based upon 
the nature of the mind's activity and taking its peculiar force 
and apphcation from the apperceptive or assimilative character 
of the mind's growth, previously described as the basis of the 
entire Herbartian pedagogy. Since the early sense-real- 
ists a general method had been sought; Herbart was the first 



Psychological Tendency in Education 637 

to work this out in detail so that it becomes a method for the 
immediate process of instruction by the teacher. This method 
consists in a given series of steps, determined not by the 
character of the material, but by the way in which the 
human mind acts and human consciousness expands. These 
steps are to be followed in every unit of instruction, which 
presumably is the recitation, though particular units may be 
determined rather by the subject-matter than by time limits. 
There is no particular virtue in these steps themselves, nor is 
the goal that Herbart aims at to be attained by the mere 
formal application of these steps to a recitation. This 
method is a mere form to aid in the realization of the great 
end of instruction, a form of which a teacher who is success- 
ful in obtaining that end may be in entire ignorance and in 
the use of which even the teacher familiar with it should 
most often be unconscious. 

The immediate function of instruction is to furnish the mind 
with ideas, to establish their proper relationships, to connect 
them or color them with good will or sympathy that will lead 
to moral action. The concept interest, which indicates the ac- 
tivities through which the mind expands into the many-sided- 
ness of character, can be differentiated into certain steps ; — 
namely, observation, expectation, demand, action. Conse- 
quently instruction, which aims to develop this many-sided 
interest, "must universally point out, connect, teach, philoso- 
phize"; and "in matters appertaining to sympathy it should 
be observing, continuous, elevating, and active in the sphere 
of reality." Corresponding with these stages are the formal 
steps of instruction, — clearness, association, system, method, 
— which may be taken as the basal, at least the basal psycho- 
logical principle of the recitation. By clearness is meant the 
apprehension of a single object — practically the observation 
of Pestalozzi. Ziller, who elaborated this plan of Herbart's 
pedagogy in its application to elementary education, divided 
this step into two : prcparatioii, — the calling to mind of such 



638 History of Education 

older ideas as have intimate connection with the new to be 
imparted, and their arrangement in such an order as will 
explain the meaning of the new and tend to make lasting the 
impression which it makes ; and the actual process of pres- 
entatioji so that the new will be wholly appropriated. Here 
the concrete materials are finally brought together so that a 
general idea is found. The third step is that of association 
- — the actual combination of the new with the old. This is 
the elementary stage in the apperceptive process, and this 
preliminary fusion is largely the work of the imagination. 
The fourth step is system, — the Complete separation of the 
general notion from its concrete e^i5odiment in particulars. 
The general concept is now to be related in a systematic way 
with previously acquired knowledge, so as to make an organic 
whole. This is the work of reflection and requires both repe- 
tition and definite form of expression in language. The fifth 
step is method or application. This is the progressive reflec- 
tion of the pupil as he realizes the general concept gained 
through activities : the child must make application of his 
stock of ideas, as rapidly as they are gained, so far as is pos- 
sible in the limited activities of a child's life. In this way 
the child's ideas develop and are fused into a harmonious and 
organic mental life, out of which grows, through suggestion 
and direction, his active life. 

This is but a brief and necessarily superficial account of 
Herbart's treatment of method, for no man has written with 
keener insight or with greater suggestiveness or with deeper 
philosophical penetration concerning the immediate work of 
instruction. Thus it follows both from his philosophical and 
psychological foundations of education and from his practical 
discussions, that the Herbartian influence reveals itself in a 
strong emphasis upon the importance of instruction and con- 
sequently upon the technique of the schoolroom, especially 
of the recitation, rather than on the general spirit, as was the 
case with Pestalozzianism. He has truly summarized his sys- 



Psychological Tendency in EducrJion 639 

tem and thus indicated this influence : " Instruction will form 
the circle of thought, and education the character. The last 
is nothing without the first. Herein is contained the whole 
sum of my pedagogy." 

THE FROEBELIAN MOVEMENT. General Character- 
istics. — The Herbartian movement has been primarily one 
of educational philosophy, from the principles of which have 
been deduced in various forms the appropriate practices, 
varying with the time, place and interpreter. On the con- 
trary the Froebelian movement has been one primarily of 
practice concerning one particular stage of schooling, — the 
kindergarten, — from which has grown among the educa- 
tional public at large a gradual appreciation of the under- 
lying principles, applicable to every stage of instruction. 
One great contrast in point of view and in point of emphasis, 
indicating a fundamental divergence in theory, differentiates 
the Froebelian from the Herbartian movement. This latter, 
as previously indicated, is characterized by an emphasis upon 
the importance of the teaching process and by a perfecting 
of the technique of instruction. The FroebeHan movement is 
similarly characterized by an emphasis upon the importance 
of the child, upon his interests, experiences, and activities as 
the starting point and means of instruction, and by an im- 
provement in the spirit, purpose, " atmosphere," and morale 
of the schoolroom. One exalts the function of the teacher ; 
the other exalts the importance of the child. Herbart laid 
the emphasis upon instruction as a means for forming moral 
character ; Froebel upon the stimulated and guided activities 
of the child. Pestalozzi, Herbart, Froebel — all made moral 
character the end of education. Pestalozzi would secure it 
rather by external means, — through direct training in rlioral 
virtues, — and by the distinct though simultaneous training 
of "head, heart, and hand." Herbart sought the same end, 
through instruction ; for ideas stimulated desires, desires 



640 History of Education 

action, action properly guided by ideas gained from "inter^ 
course " produced character. To Froebel, education, begin- 
ning with the spontaneous activity of the child and leading 
from that to ideas and permanently formed volitional inter- 
ests, was more largely an emotional and volitional than an 
intellectual training. 

In educational theory Herbart worked ahead from the 
Pestalozzian basis of training in sense perception to the train- 
ing in apperception and the complete assimilation of the 
results of experience into a well-formed character. Froebel, 
from the same starting point, worked back to the more 
fundamental basis of the inherent character of child nature, 
as revealed in an earlier period of unorganized sensations, 
where the possibility of training was found to be most 
largely in the emotional-volitional aspects of mental activities. 
The volitional, not as with Herbart the intellectual, character 
of the human mind was found to be fundamental. While 
the practical application of these new ideas was made by 
Froebel to only one stage of education, and that the earliest, 
the kindergarten, the principles themselves as formulated in 
his more philosophical works, are fundamental to all stages 
of education. The attempt to make this application to 
higher stages in the present and in the future is after 
all the true Froebelian movement. Some of the most 
profound changes in educational thought and practice of 
present times are in accord with, if not in response to, 
these demands formulated by Froebel. To indicate the far- 
reaching character of these principles one quotation from 
EdiLcation as Developmeiit will suffice. 

*' Therefore, that which is to have true, abiding and bless- 
ing, instructive and formative effect on the child as pupil and 
scholar, and as a future active man, viz. independent employ- 
ment — must not only be founded on life as it actually 
appears, must not only be connected with life, but must also 
form itself in harmony with the requirements of life, of the 



Psychological l^endency iii Edtuatioii 641 

surroundings, and of the time, and with what they offer. It 
must especially have an arousing and wakening effect on the 
inner life of the child and must thus spontaneously germinate 
from that life. This is the nature of the developing educa- 
tional training of man, to follow and practice which I regard 
as the indispensable of the time (founded on the law of 
nature and the world, on the necessary laws of the forma- 
tion of life), and the maintenance of which I recognize as the 
demand of life. I hold it in its general comprehensive 
application as so highly important to the life of humanity and 
of the nations, that its realization and accomplishment (in 
proportion to the degree in which it is connected with simple 
unchangeable laws) should be the task of all education, in all 
relations of life, and under all circumstances." 



Herein are stated the two phases of the most pronounced 
change in matters of instruction in our own times. The first 
of these concerns the curriculum, and posits that the materials 
of instruction, if they are really and vitally to produce the 
development of the child's mind and nature, must be selected 
from life as it now is and as it affects the child and comes 
within his experience. The second is the complementary be- 
lief, that if education is to produce the results desired, both 
individual and social, the effects of school instruction must 
relate directly to life as it now is, through the activities of the 
child that form the culmination of the process of instruction. 

Relating as it does to this contemplation of the whole 
problem of education from the standpoint of the child's 
nature, to this conception of the fundamental nature of its 
volitional character, and to the determination of all other 
problems of education from this one principle of development 
through self -activity, the Froebelian movemr .1, aside from 
the kindergarten aspect of it, is thus even less well defined in 
its influence upon school work and consequently more diffi- 
cult to trace than is the Herbartian influence. However, it 
is evident from this introductory statement that these ideas 
permeate all modern educational thought. In general, one 

2T 



642 History of Education 

may say that whenever the emphasis in school work is placed 
upon the activities of the child rather than upon the tech- 
nique of the process of instruction, and whenever develop- 
ment of character and of personality is sought, rather than 
mere impartation of information and training of intellec- 
tual abihties, that there the Froebelian influence is to be 
recognized. 

Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel (1782-1852). — Of all 
educational reformers, Froebel's experience as well as his 
theories most nearly resemble those of Pestalozzi. In fact, 
both his novel experiences and his revolutionary theories 
start from direct contact with Pestalozzi. Yet his life's 
activities do not throw so much light on his ideas as do 
those of Pestalozzi ; for Froebel's theories were but educa- 
tional expressions of the dominant philosophical thought that 
had been formulated in philosophical form early in his life. 
Further than this, his life's work was not so much in devel- 
oping these on their logical side as in perfecting their appli- 
cation. On the other hand Froebel possessed a power 
which few reformers have possessed, least of all Pestalozzi, 
of crystallizing theory into practice ; of interpreting general 
principles in concrete form ; of both stating the philosophy 
and organizing the practical application of new educational 
doctrines. Nevertheless, Froebel's practical attempts at 
institutional administration, in putting his new ideas into 
operation, were like those of the earlier reformer. But this 
was due not so much to lack of practical ability, — though 
he, like other geniuses, found it difficult to work with other 
people, — but rather to the troubled character of the times 
in which he worked, and to the fact that the way of the 
reformer, since he is a transgressor, is hard. 

Froebel's early education was fragmentary and without 
definite purpose. It was unsatisfactory, as he later said, 
because there was no unity whatever between the subjects 
taught and no connection between the subjects of instruction 



Psychological Tendency in Education 643 

and life. His youth was divided between university work and 
piactical scientific work, for he was in turn an apprentice 
to a forester, an accountant on large estates, a surveyor, and 
later a museum assistant in geological sciences. Out of all 
this experience came two fundamental results, — a profound 
love for nature and a conviction that throughout nature one 
found revealed that unity of idea and realization that was 
preached in the philosophy of the university but nowhere 
found in educational work. At twenty-three he was per- 
suaded to become a teacher in the Pestalozzian Institute at 
Frankfort, and thus discovered his life calling. After two 
years here he became private tutor to three boys whom he 
took to Pestalozzi's Institute at Yverdun, where he remained 
in association, though not in immediate organic connection, 
for two years more. From this experience came a devotion 
to educational reform, for which he now further prepared 
himself by completing his university course. After having 
participated in the effort to overthrow Napoleon, — an attempt 
upon which Froebel entered with great enthusiasm because 
it was a movement in the political sphere toward that unity 
for which Froebel ever strove, — he gave up, in 18 16, his posi- 
tion as curator in the Berlin Museum and undertook his work 
of educational reform. To this he was inspired by the com- 
plete lack of unity and clear purpose in existing educational 
work, by his experience with the Pestalozzian movement, 
and by his discovery of the unity in the processes of nature. 
In a peasant's cottage, with five little children, he opened 
his " Universal German Educational Institute." This was 
the institute at Keilhau, whither it was removed in 1817, 
where for many years Froebel worked along the line of edu- 
cational betterment, somewhat similar to that of Pestalozzi. 
Here he met the same opposition from established authorities, 
strengthened now by the political opposition to all revolution- 
ary ideas. Though the work was far more substantial than 
the similar work of Pestalozzi, because supported by far 



644 History of Education 

wider philosophical knowledge and by greater practical 
ability among the assistants, yet Froebel revealed a similar 
lack of power in practical management. The scope of his 
educational work was far wider than that of Pestalozzi, and 
was directed largely toward secondary studies. It was 
not until 1826, after the appearance of his most general 
treatise, The Education of Man, that Froebel, directed 
thereto especially by the treatise of Comenius in that subject, 
turned his special attention to the educational possibilities of 
the earliest years of childhood. Froebel had ever been a 
close student of children, and had even then made further 
progress in the use of play and the spontaneous activities of 
children than had ever been done previously. A Govern- 
ment inspector was sent in 1825 on account of the supposed 
revolutionary character of the work of the institute. His 
report, together with a plan for a new institute issued by 
Froebel in 1829, brought into greater prominence than had 
the philosophical work of 1826 his fundamental principle. 
This was, that children are creative rather than receptive 
creatures and that all educational work should be based upon 
this inherent tendency of children to express themselves in 
action. To quote but a portion of one sentence from the 
report of a presumably hostile inspector : — 

" Self-activity of the mind is the first law of this instruc- 
tion ; therefore the kind of instruction given here does not 
make the young mind a strong box, into which, as early as 
possible, all kinds of coins of the most different values and 
coinage, such as are now current in the world, are stuffed ; 
but slowly, continuously, gradually, and always inwardly, that 
is, according to a connection found in the nature of the human 
mind, the instruction steadily goes on, without any tricks, 
from the simple to the complex, from the concrete to the 
abstract, so well adapted to the child and his needs that he 
goes as readily to his learning as to his play." 

During some eight or ten years of unsuccessful practical 



Psychological Te7ide7icy in Education 645 

attempts, — one of them at Burgdorf, where Pestalozzi had 
made educational experimentation famous, — Froebel crys- 
tallized his ideas concerning the education of the earliest 
years. In 1837, '^^ the little village of Blankenburg, near 
Keilhau, he put into operation the first of these new institu- 
tions, to which two years later he gave the name of kinder- 
garteii. To this new educational propaganda, Froebel 
devoted the remainder of his life ; for here in this virgin field 
the new educational ideas were more clearly expressed and 
more readily realized. During the period immediately fol- 
lowing the establishment of the first kindergarten was pro- 
duced the greater part of the Froebelian hterature. This 
literature was chiefly devoted to the practical elaboration of 
.these new kindergarten ideas and to a popularizing of the 
institution itself. This latter phase of his work made slow 
progress, and from 185 1 to 1861 their very establishment was 
prohibited by the Prussian government, on account of the sup- 
posed revolutionary character of the kindergartens. On the 
other hand, the practical work elaborated by Froebel yet 
remains, with slight modification, the basis of kindergarten 
methods. 

Character of his Writings. — In the following brief state- 
ment of the leading Froebelian principles it must be borne 
in mind that, notwithstanding Froebel's unusual power of 
making the practical interpretation of his abstract ideas, his 
philosophical writings present peculiar difficulties of interpre- 
tation and are characterized by a lack of clearness and by an 
indefiniteness quite as great as that of Pestalozzi, though of 
a very different kind. While of a philosophical character, 
his ideas are expressed in emotional rather than in scientific 
form. Since the idealism of Froebel verges on the trans- 
cendental and mystical, exact interpretation is often impos- 
sible. Froebel was devoutly religious ; but, influenced by his 
philosoph)' and his love of nature, his religion was almost 
pantheistic in thought, and in expression bordered on the 



646 History of Education 

ecstatic. There results a symbolism, even a search foi 
occult interpretations in the simplest phenomenal relations, 
that is peculiarly foreign to an age so strongly scientific, even 
positivistic, as was the latter half of the nineteenth century. 
To this fact is largely due, not only the difficulty of interpret- 
ing Froebel, but also the lack of sympathy for and even the 
pronounced hostihty to many ideas fundamentally acceptable. 
But even at best Froebel's philosophy and psychology leave 
much to be completed and much to be restated entirely. 
That work of restatement of principle and completion of 
detail is the task of educational thought of the present. 
From Froebel, even more than from Herbart or from Pesta- 
lozzi, have sprung the chief streams of present educational 
thought. 

However much Froebel emphasized the principle of unity 
as the all-important one, there does not exist in his writings 
the unity of a system of educational thought which can be 
expounded. Such unity as does exist is to be found in per- 
manent and ever present principles of interpretation of life, 
of reality and of educational problems, and in the tendency 
and purpose of all his thought. 

The Law of Unity, or Inner Connectedness as the Basis of 
Education. — ■ Froebel's educational thought is founded pri- 
marily upon a philosophy, as Herbart's was upon a psychol- 
ogy ; though, to be sure, there was also in the former case an 
accompanying psychology and in the latter an accompanying 
philosophy. In regard to both philosophy and psychology, 
the two educational reformers radically disagreed. It was 
from the dominant idealistic philosophy of Kant, Schelling, 
Hegel, even in the extreme form given by Fichte, against 
which Herbart ever protests, that Froebel starts. The fun- 
damental tenet of this entire philosophical movement was to 
find the explanation of reality and, on its practical side, of 
life, in the fundamental unity of existence both of nature and 
man in the absolute spirit. The absolute is no longer mat 



Psychological Tendency in Education 647 

ter, it is spirit — self-conscious spirit ; and in this self-con- 
scious spirit are found both the purpose and the presupposition 
of the world, the explanation both of the origin and the 
meaning of existence — both of man and of nature. This 
gives the unity which furnishes the explanation of the mani- 
foldness of nature and of life, for the only real differences are 
those of the units or subunities within the all-encompassing 
unity which gives meaning to all these seeming diversities. 
To Froebel then this spiritual essence, or reality, was the 
source of all life, of all existence ; and it was the purpose of 
education to expand the hfe of the individual and compre- 
hend this existence through participation in this all-pervad- 
ing spirit. This inner-connectedness furnished the explanation 
of all reality ; the realization of it in the life of the indi- 
vidual constitutes the aim of education. The opening para- 
graph of TJie Education of Man contains the whole theory in 
essence, 

" In all things there lives and reigns an eternal law. To 
him whose mind, through disposition and faith, is filled, pene- 
trated, and quickened with the necessity that this cannot be 
otherwise, as well as to him whose clear, calm mental vision 
beholds the inner in the outer and through the outer, and sees 
the outer proceeding with logical necessity from the essence 
of the inner, this law has been and is announced with equal 
clearness and distinctness in nature (the external), in the 
spirit (the internal), and in life which unites the two. This 
all-pervading law is necessarily based on an all-pervading, 
energetic, living, self-conscious, and hence eternal Unity. 
This fact, as well as the Unity itself, is again vividly recog- 
nized, either through faith or through insight, with equal 
clearness and comprehensiveness ; therefore, a quietly observ- 
ant human mind, a thoughtful, clear human intellect, has 
never failed, and will never fail, to recognize this Unity. 
This Unity is God. All things have come from the Divine 
Unity, from God, and have their origin in the Divine Unity, 
in God alone. God is the sole source of all things. In all 
things there lives and reigns the Divine Unity, God. All 



648 History of Education 

things live and have their being in and through the Divine 
Unity, in and through God. Ail things are only through the 
divine effluence that lives in them. The divine effluence that 
lives in each thing is the essence of each thing." 

Every individual object and being participates in this "all- 
pervading, self-conscious unity," which gives meaning to the 
individual object and to the individual life. To come into a 
realization of this unity, to develop the *' inner-connection," 
to expand this germ of the universal that lies in each one, to 
develop this " divine essence " until one partakes of its fullness 
— this is education. For, as he says elsewhere, " It is the 
destiny and Hfe work of all things to unfold their essence, 
hence their divine being." 

The intense religious feeling that pervades all of Froebel's 
writings thus iinds its explanation ; it is not something extra- 
neous — tacked on, as it were. It is the very breath of life 
of his system. Every being or reality participates in this 
essence and to that extent is capable of revealing it or, if 
conscious existence, is capable of attaining to it. Hence 
every object of nature can reveal God. The object of educa- 
tion is the reahzation of this destiny, the development of this 
essence into unity with the absolute. " For nature as well as 
all existing things is a manifestation, a revelation of God. 
The purpose of all existence is to reveal God. All existing 
things are only through and because of the divine essence 
that is in them." The constant repetition of this and similar 
ideas is not cant ; it is a part of his philosophy, and with 
Froebel philosophy was not a theory, but life. In fact, 
this religious belief is identical with the fundamental law of 
inner-connectedness, and it in turn becomes the basis and 
gives the purpose to education. 

In his Education by Development he states the reasons 
why the law of connection or of unity is the fundamental law 
of education. In substance, his statement is as follows: 
(i) Through it we thoroughly comprehend the nature of the 



Psychological Tendency in Edncation 649 

child. (2) By it the individual, the child, is recognized as the 
central point of all relations of life. (3) Through it we obtain 
a true and evident purpose in education and a suitable means 
and method for accomplishing this aim. (4) Education founded 
on this law is practical, since it demands immediate accom- 
pHshment and application. (5) Such an education is suited 
to this practical age, which demands the realization in life of 
the highest ideals formulated from experience. (6) Such an 
education adapts itself to every age of life and every stage in 
the child's development. (7) This education of unification is 
peculiarly appropriate to an age of isolation, contrariety, and 
individualism such as the present. (8) Such an education 
would make clear and real in life the highest philosophical 
and ethical thought. (9) Such an education would check the 
growing proletarianism and the deadening and mechanical 
effect of an age of industrialism, since it unfolds, strengthens, 
and develops the power of the child until it can maintain 
itself in independent personality, since it teaches him how to 
treat material according to its nature, gives to work its high 
significance as creative activity and cultivates the power of 
thought, of will and of action. Thus it lays the true foun- 
dation for character. 

From his belief in the reality of this unity Froebel drew his 
belief that nature revealed God to the child ; hence there pro- 
ceeded both his emphasis upon the use of natural phenomena 
and nature study with the child and his symbolic presentation 
of this material. He saw the unity in organic life, and thus 
became one of the earlier advocates of the theory of organic 
evolution ; from this he was led to place an altogether new 
emphasis upon the study of nature, of botany, zoology, etc., 
by the child. He believed that the same unity was to be 
found in the inorganic world and that it became a symbol to 
the child of all the higher unity of thought and life. Conse- 
quently from this conception he derived his ideas of the use of 
the "gifts " in the kindergarten. In that which he drew from 



650 History of Education 

his own feeling of the universal as expressed in inorganic forms, 
— as in crystals, — there is much that is fanciful ; the more so 
when the fundamental philosophical thought is not at all under- 
stood. Between the individual and the race, which form in 
reality but one great organic life which the school should epito- 
mize, is to be found a higher unity. The school thus becomes 
an association for the child wherein he discovers in a simpli- 
fied and idealized form all the relations of society. The true 
function of the school as a means for social progress as well 
as the instrument of individual development is thus revealed. 
In the life of the individual there is the same unity; that 
between the stages of infancy, childhood, youth, manhood, 
which is so set at naught by the school in its failure to com- 
prehend this unity that education itself becomes but a form. 
Even more thoroughly than did Herbart, Froebel recognized 
this unity and the organic connection between the various sub- 
jects of study as a basis for a necessary reorganization of the 
school curriculum. Hence the culture epoch theory or, more 
exactly, the idea of correlation of studies, has received support 
among Froebehans, though with no adherence to particular 
schemes, as among Herbartians. In a similar way, this law 
of inner connectedness — the unity of the objective and the 
subjective — gave to Froebel his conception of mental growth 
and led to an emphasis upon the unity of the knowing, feeling, 
and willing activities, that is quite as fundamental and, 
although not definitely organized by Froebel in psychological 
terms, much nearer the modern scientific views of the nature 
of the mind's growth and activities than is the Herbartian 
psychology. 

At every point Froebel found a unity between thought and 
life, which is to be developed by education. Education be- 
comes the continuous progressive adjustment of the individual 
to the larger life, which is his by destiny and in which he must 
find his being, his true self. 

Development as the Process of Education. — The philosophi- 



Psychological Tendency in Education 65 1 

cal idea of unity demands as its accompaniment the idea of 
continuity of generation of all things. The individualism of 
the period of Rousseau gives way to the idea of organic unity 
and development. Philosophically, reality now becomes the 
spiritual, — mind, — which is absolute and self-determining. 
This self-determination applies not only to the origin or the 
existence of things, but also to the process by which the world 
of manifestation is sustained. The scientific expression of 
the' dominant idea, of which the English scientists, Spencer, 
Darwin, Wallace, later elaborated the formulae of the process, 
gave the theory of organic evolution. This idea Froebel 
seized and, first of all, applied to education. Not only is 
this found in his theoretical statements concerning the nature 
and process of education, but it also gives deeper meaning to 
;||iti use of the gifts and the concrete activities of the school- 
i:5dom ; for a primary principle in both is that each following 
activity includes each preceding and earlier one. " All that 
follows must go out from that which precedes," becomes al- 
most cabalistic in its meaning in his various writings, in that 
it contains so much meaning that is occult to the casual reader. 
In his Education of Man the general philosophical idea is 
thus stated as usual in religious form. " God creates and 
works productively in uninterrupted continuity. Each thought 
of God is a work, a deed, a product, and each thought of God 
continues to work with creative power in endless productive 
activity to all eternity." Evolution is the tendency of this unity 
— spirit — to work itself out into the manifold activities 
of spirit and of the accompanying phenomenal expressions. 
Thus education is but a phase of the general process of evolu- 
tion ; it is a development by which the individual comes into 
realization of the life of the all-encompassing unity of which 
he is but a unit ; a development by which his life broadens 
until it has related itself to nature, until it enters sympatheti- 
cally into all the activities of society, until it participates in 
the achievements of the race and the aspirations of humanity. 



652 History of EdMcaiion 

Though these ideas are usually expressed in abstract philo- 
sophical form, and though he never arranged them in a logical 
system, Froebel also elaborated a series of exercises, called gifts 
and occupations, through which this unified development could 
be brought about in the hands of a skillful teacher. The activi- 
ties called for by the gifts and occupations are not merely 
useful to the teacher and beneficial to the child ; to those who 
understand and enter into Froebel's point of view, they have 
a far deeper meaning, for they offer means, most carefully 
worked out with profound philosophical insight, for produc- 
ing, or at least assisting, this development of the child's mind 
and spirit. And yet it must be noted that the extent to 
which this development is attained does not depend upon the 
mere use of these exercises as prescribed by the master, how- 
ever much emphasis is placed upon the self-activity of the 
child, but upon the extent to which the teacher possesses this 
same insight into life and reality, and the extent to which the 
child's mind is possessed by the same motive and conscious- 
ness of this unity of existence. The use of the gifts and 
occupations, merely to interest the child in his environment 
and give him a knowledge of it or even to relate him to it, is 
not the realization of the real design according to Froebel. 
Only when these gifts and occupations, in fact any school 
activities, are used upon the basis of this principle of unity 
and this process of development are their true educational 
values obtained. Then will be realized the Froebelian truths : 
" That which lies in the whole, lies in the smallest part ; thus, 
that which lies in humanity as a whole also expresses itself even 
in the smallest and youngest of its children. And further, that 
thus, that which lies in humanity as a whole and expresses 
itself even in the child, slumbers in the child as essence and 
germ, makes itself known again in the smallest detail of its 
nature ; indeed, definitely shows itself therein to a clear spirit- 
ual eye." 

The essential idea of the Education of Man Froebel states as 



Psychological Tendency in Education 653 

follows : " God neither ingrafts nor inoculates. He develops 
the most trivial and imperfect things in continuously ascend- 
ing series, and in accordance with eternal, self-grounded, 
and self-developing laws." Education is but the realization 
of the evolutionary process in its highest stage as revealed in 
the individual human being. Thus Froebel, first of all, states 
the view of education which is yet to prevail. 

Self-activity as the Method of the Process. — In emphasiz- 
ing the principles of self-activity as the method by which 
education — this development previously described — takes 
place, Froebel again indicated that he participated in the 
dominant thought-life of the early nineteenth century and 
that he was the first to make application of these ideas, com- 
mon to philosophy and to science, to the problems of educa- 
tion. In the department of scientific thought the old idea of 
the hard-and-fast classification of forms of life had given 
place to a more general belief in the idea of development of 
lower forms into higher and of the connectedness of all 
forms of life. In this respect the general introduction of the 
term "biology " to indicate a general science of living forms, 
just at the opening of the century, is significant. At this 
time ( 1 802-1 809) Lamarck had published his views concern- 
ing the forces that produced this development of higher forms 
of life from lower and thus made clear one of the principles 
that connect all forms of life. This was the theory of use 
and disuse of organs, which was but a special application of 
the principle of self-activity. Previously, evolution had been 
explained by such scientists or philosophers as believed in it 
by the varying influences of external conditions, such as 
climate. With Lamarck, the animal, the organism itself, 
became the chief factor. As the use of the arm or of any 
particular muscle of the body will produce a corresponding 
development, so the effort of an organism to use any organ 
in a particular direction will produce a corresponding devel- 
opment ; and conversely, its disuse will cause a proportionate 



654 History of Education 

atrophy. However unsatisfactory the theory might be in 
explaining the origin of forms and however limited its 
application might be to the plant world, this was the iirst 
general explanation offered of the origin of diversity of forms 
and of the principle of their growth. In philosophical 
thought these limitations of one particular application of 
the idea presented no insuperable difficulties ; for this ten- 
dency to use organs in any one direction was but one mani- 
festation of the principle of activity through which and by 
virtue of the possession of which the individual organism 
participated in the all-pervading essence that gave meaning 
to all material existence. The dominant philosophy of the 
times, especially as Froebel accepted it, held that there is 
a fundamental unity in all things, a permanent principle in 
all changes and forms of hfe. There is a single for- 
mative energy which reveals itself in nature, that is in 
external Hfe, as force, and in consciousness of the inner 
life, as mind. This energy, as intelligence in the individual, 
builds up for itself its own world. The self — the mind — is 
not so much possessed of activity as it is activity. Through 
this activity it realizes itself, builds up its own world, be- 
comes conscious of itself, and works out its own destiny. 
This is true both in the intellectual and moral application. 

These ideas are given different formulation, different em- 
phasis, and different combination in the systems elaborated 
by the various philosophers mentioned, and in order to under- 
stand Froebel clearly a mastery of the thought suggested 
here in but a single point needs to be worked out in the 
detail impossible in a brief text-book. The point to be noted 
is that Froebel but applied to the problems of education 
the idea that was the vital element of the thought of the 
period. 

In connection with Froebel's practical work, it has been 
noted that early in his experience he had realized the signifi- 
cance of this principle when applied to educational method 



Psychological Tendency in Edtication 655 

At Keilhau self-activity of the mind was the first law of 
instruction. That is, the child was regarded as a creative 
rather than a receptive being, and all educational processes 
were made to take as their starting point, the natural inclina- 
tion of the child to express himself in action. 

In the discussion of the fundamental idea of unity, the 
significance and meaning of self-activity were also involved. 
Each individual thing or being participates in the unity of the 
whole through this very tendency to " unfold its essence," to 
develop its nature, and to do this by realizing the connected- 
ness with its environment, with life as a whole and its unity 
with the absolute. This unfolding of essence or develop- 
ment of nature is through forces inherent in the individual, 
through self-activity. Self-activity — this tendency to realize 
its destiny, to accomplish its end as an element in this com- 
plex organism, reality, implanted by nature in each individual 

— is the most fundamental characteristic of all life. This is 
even more clearly seen when the process of development is 
considered ; for self-activity becomes the method of spiritual 
evolution, just as later Darwin emphasizes natural selection 
as the chief method of biological evolution, or as Lamarck had 
earlier emphasized use and disuse as the most prominent 
method. To the philosophy of the times self-activity became 
the method of all evolution, since to it the spiritual — mind 

— is reality ; and it is by this alone that the world of mani- 
festation is sustained. 

A few words further will indicate somewhat more clearly 
the educational significance of self-activity as the principle of 
method. Froebel emphasizes at every point that self-activity 
is the process by which the individual realizes his own nature, 
by which he builds up his own world or representation of the 
external, and by which he unites and harmonizes the two. 
Thus the life of the individual is the process: (i)by which 
he knows nature, or the objective world ; (2) as throuo-h 
this he comes to know himself, by which he comes to know 



656 History of Education 

his own nature ; and (3) by which he becomes a part of the 
hfe of both nature and humanity. In all of this, if there is 
any true realization of the self, of the possibilities of individual 
character — the individual has determined his own activities 
and is free. So far as he works under compulsion of external 
force he fails to realize this unity. 

Self-activity — activity determined by one's own motives, 
arising out of one's own interests, sustained by one's own 
power — can alone produce this evolution of mind, can alone 
secure that which is held to be the aim of education. Such 
activity in a way is compelled, since it is in response to the 
inherent nature of being and of the individual ; but as the 
individual responds only in obedience to the force felt within 
his own nature, and not to one from without, such activity is 
free — it is self ^iCtivxiy. Because such activities are free, and 
at the same time take place according to law, — the laws of 
one's own nature, the laws of mind, — it is possible to formu- 
late them and to accept them as a guide to all educational 
work. 

Thus it follows that all processes of instruction must start 
from or originate with this volitional interest of the child. 
Beginning with his spontaneous activities, action may be sus- 
tained and may be stimulated toward certain ends that have 
far more permanent value than such activities undirected or 
uninfluenced. 

From these same general principles, especially this con- 
nectedness of the spiritual with the material, or this realiza- 
tion of the nature of self in the world of externals, it follows 
that no such process of instruction — starting as it must from 
some activity springing from the nature of the child — can 
be complete or can have its full educative value until it has 
had some realization in action, until it has to some extent 
modified conduct. Any impression upon the mind is wasted 
unless it has had its appropriate physical reaction. Modern 
science would put this in very different form from that of the 



Psychological Tendency in Education 657 

philosophy of Froebel, but the thought is the same and in 
its educational application it was formulated by Froebel 
long ago. 

Not only does the tendency inherent in the child's nature 
relate to conduct and action in the physical sense, the child 
reveals the same spontaneous effort to indicate its conception 
of things, to reveal the processes of its own mind, — that is, 
its thought. It attempts through this "revelation to bring 
about a harmony between the world of thought and the world 
of external reahty. Such spontaneous efforts constitute self- 
activity, and give to the teacher the opportunity for instruc- 
tion ; that is, for creating a fuller harmony between the inner 
and the outer, between thought and external world, than the 
child unaided would be able to do. 

Froebel, speaking of self-activity, says : " The good results 
of all true education depend on the careful notice, fostering, 
development, strengthening, and cultivation of this feeling 
on the part of the child that he is a whole, and yet also a 
part of all life; and on the avoidance of every violation, 
clouding, or disturbance of it." Thus for the school, self- 
activity means this desire of the child to enter into the life of 
others and the life around it ; the desire to help, to find out, 
to discover, to participate in common activities, to create, to 
discover the identity or connection between itself and the 
activities and processes of others — the discovery which con- 
stitutes knowledge. These are all forms of self-activity, and 
are to be seized upon as the sole motives to those school pro- 
cesses that the teacher wishes to make educative. In what- 
ever form it may take, this desire of the child to become a 
part of the life around him, and thus reahze his own being, 
is the beginning point of all instruction. This determines 
the method of education ; for begun in this way, these activi- 
ties, in whatever direction they may be guided by the teacher, 
should be sustained by the child's own powers as he gradually 
becomes able to put forth greater and greater effort. 
2 u 



05^ History of Education 

The interpretation which Froebel himself gave to this effort 
of the child to relate himself to the world-whole and the 
methods which he took of stimulating it by use of certain 
objects and exercises, led to a symbolism which alienates 
many from his thoughts in general. However, this symbolic 
use of these particular objects and activities, in so far as they 
apply to the higher stages of learning, has no vital connec- 
tion with his fundamental theories. The extent to which 
such interpretation is valid for kindergarten work is aside 
from our interest here. This is to be answered in the light of 
prevaiUng ideas and practices rather than by the practices 
formulated by Froebel for his own time and people. 

Education is not a preparation for a future state. This 
life which the child seeks to enter is not the adult life, but 
the life around him. Education finds its meaning in the pro- 
cess, not in some condition remote and only real through the 
imagination. The aim of education is development, the 
process of education is development. In so far as the child 
enters to the full extent of his powers and his nature into 
unity with the life around him, the development of the 
present is secured ; the development of the future is measured 
by the same standard. The aim of education is thus realized 
as fully in the child as in the adult. There is no ulterior end. 
Stating that the. end is also process, is found in develop- 
ment, is to say that the end and process are found in the 
child. Yet not in the child alone, but in the child as he relates 
himself to the world around him. 

We have seen that Froebel as well as Herbart and Pesta- 
lozzi emphasized the moral character of education. With 
Froebel education is the formation of character because it is 
the determination of the nature of the child's activities. Edu- 
cation is moral because it is the relating of the child to life and 
the revelation of the child's inner nature through action. Ordi- 
nary education is defective because it results in the develop- 
ment of intellectual attainments and of insight greater than 



Psychological Tendency in Education 659 

ihe complementary power of accomplishment. As with Rous- 
seau, though in a far wider sense, Froebel would have the 
power of accomplishment and of action developed as fully as 
the powers of acquisition and of reflection, because developed 
along with them. By basing education upon the activity of 
the child and gauging education by the child's self-activity, 
power of execution is developed to the same degree and in the 
same connection as the other acquisitions. There is no hiatus 
between knowledge and action ; no conflict between theory and 
practice ; no discrepancy between profession and deeds. 

Self-activity cannot be defined in a simple statement. 
Froebel nowhere so defines it. But the interpretations just 
given are some of the more important implications of the prin- 
ciple, which will be recognized as the source of many fruitful 
educational ideas of the present. 

Influence of Froebel on Educational Practice. — Froebel's 
conception of school work, like that of Pestalozzi, was a radical 
departure from the estabhshed and traditional practice still 
in existence, despite the work of Rousseau, Basedow, and 
Pestalozzi. For these changes, which were justified by pre- 
ceding reforms largely on empirical grounds, Froebel gives 
a real philosophy, which in time becomes illuminating. In 
Education by Development Froebel asserts that, — 

" Education and instruction, discipline and school, seek, as 
a rule, the grounds for determining their requirements and 
their management either wholly outside of the life of the 
children or, even if within the life of the human being, yet 
derived from a time which is, in respect to the child, so far 
in the future as to have for him no power at all of attraction, 
of arousing, and of development. That which the child is to 
do and learn must proceed from its power of will and action 
inwardly united to a doing, to a desire, by means of the direct, 
instantaneous effect of the total life united in itself. Cer- 
tainly this is shown by almost all our subjects of instruction, 
especially as apphed to the mass of people. Our instructions 
in reading and writing, as also in counting and speaking, 



66o History of Education 

arithmetic and language, are especially feeble, as they mostly 
begin with the abstract with which instruction should close ; 
hence the few abiding results of this instruction in life." 

The school, to Froebel, was a place where the child should 
learn the important things of life, the essentials of truth, 
justice, free personality, responsibility, initiative, causal rela- 
tionship, and the like ; not by learning them, but by living 
them out. 

According to the fundamental idea of unity, the school 
was to be an institution in which each child should discover 
his own individuality, work out his own personality, and 
develop his power of initiative and of execution. He was to 
do this through cooperation with others in similar endeavor?, 
in work where interest was shared by all, responsibihty borne 
by all, and rewards enjoyed by all. Mutual helpfulness was 
a constant motive. The school, as the world, was to become 
a unity in which the units of developing individuality were 
to find their perfection through participation in the life of 
the world. " His kindergarten or school," says Hughes,^ " was 
a little world where responsibility was shared by all, individ- 
ual rights respected by all, brotherly sympathy developed by 
all, and voluntary cooperation practiced by all." Thus co- 
operation as the correlative of unity, diversity within the unit, 
— the law of life and of reality, — is to become the principle 
of the school. The school becomes a miniature society. 
Education becomes a phase of life, not as a preparation but 
as an epitome. 

Instruction is no longer synonymous with education, nor 
even with school work. It becomes the middle term of a pro- 
cess which starts from the child's spontaneous activities and 
native interests and terminates in some creative use or tangi- 
ble expression of the knowledge imparted by instruction, as 
spontaneous activities are directed toward some given and 

1 FroebcPs Educational Laws, p. 1 6. 



Psychological Tendency in Ediication 66 1 

approved ends by the teacher. Upon the native tendency is 
thus grafted a habit or custom, a mode of activity and of 
thought which is approved as a desired educational end. 
Thus education seeks neither to eliminate nature, nor to 
let it severely alone, but to help nature, — to guide it to 
ends higher than those it would reach unaided, or at least 
to secure these ends by readier and more direct means. 

Play. — One of the most marked influences of Froebel upon 
the practical work of the schools was the demonstration of the 
value of play in the earlier stages of education. The educa- 
tional value of play had been asserted by Plato, and by him in 
turn justified by the practical use made of it by the ancient 
Egyptians. All through the history of education, especially 
with the early Renaissance writers, this view is frequently 
expressed. For a half century preceding the founding of 
the kindergarten, there had been a well-defined movement 
in German educational thought and practice, in which the 
educational value of play was a chief characteristic. In 
this movement the ph3^sical value was chiefly emphasized. 
With Froebel the intellectual and moral value was made 
supreme. 

As the most characteristic spontaneous activity of the child, 
play becomes the basis of the educational process in the early 
years. Resulting most directly from the native interests of 
the child, it furnishes the best natural stock upon which to 
graft the habits of action, feehng, and thought approved by 
the educator. It is through play that the child first repre- 
sents the world to himself. Consequently it is through play 
that the educator can give to the child the interpretation of life 
which he seeks to impart. Through it he can best introduce 
him into the world of actual social relations, give him the 
sense of independence and of mutual helpfulness, provide 
him with initiative and motivation, and develop him as the 
individual constituting a unit in the social whole. 

Froebel did not stop with the theoretical demonstration of 



662 History of Education 

the educational value of play ; he realized his ideas in the 
practical procedure of the kindergarten. But the general 
value of the use of play activities in the kindergarten has 
consisted largely in the demonstration to the educational 
public at large of a truer conception of the meaning of educa- 
tion. On the other hand, through a misinterpretation of and 
an over-emphasis upon this doctrine of interest, much that 
is detrimental has crept into many a modern school. There 
has grown a tendency to interpret the idea that play is 
educative into the pernicious fallacy that education is play. 
Thus again is revealed the tendency previously noted, to 
exalt a means intended as a starting point into an end in 
itself. 

Educational Value of Handivork. — Analogous to the use of 
play is that of all forms of constructive work. As a motive 
representing the same spontaneity as play, as an activity 
representing the concrete constructive process of making real 
an idea or a process of instruction, constructive work might 
form both the beginning and the end of the educational pro- 
cess. Industrial training had been recognized as a phase of 
education by Rousseau, but upon social and economic grounds. 
Pestalozzi, believing as he did that all knowledge came through 
the senses and that education was primarily a training of the 
sense-perceptions, had added to this the psychological motive. 
Though he made these more practically effective than had 
hitherto been done, Fellenberg (p. 723) hardly seized more 
than the social and economic import. On distinctly educational 
grounds, Froebel gave to all manual and industrial training 
and to all forms of constructive work the place which they are 
coming to occupy in modern schooling. Pestalozzi introduced 
object study and manual activities largely from the receptive 
point of view, that of imparting knowledge, or at best that 
of developing the sense perceptions. Froebel gave them a 
creative purpose. Through them the child was to develop 
power, since each activity was to the child but an expression 



Psychological Tendency in Education 66 



J 



of some idea or purpose gained through instruction. The use 
of any object or material or bit of information introduced 
into the school is to find out what the child can do with it. 
Thus, in a broader sense than with Herbart, all culminates 
in application ; in a broader sense than with Pestalozzi, all 
school work is constructive. To Froebel there was an 
additional value which finds little recognition in present 
thought and which need not modify one's judgment of the 
practical value of Froebel's principle, — he found a spirit- 
ual, even an occult, meaning in the handling of material 
objects by the child. This is to be noted as strictly a phase 
of his symbolic teaching. This moral, spiritual, and religious 
meaning of constructive work he states thus : — 

" God created man in his own image ; therefore man should 
create and bring forth like God. The spirit of man should 
hover over the shapeless, and move it that it may take shape 
and form, a distinct being and life of its own. This is the 
high meaning, the deep significance, the great purpose of 
work and industry, of productive and creative activity. We 
become truly GodHke in diligence and industry, in working 
and doing, which are accompanied by the clear perception or 
even by the vaguest feeling that thereby we represent the 
inner in the outer ; that we give body to spirit and form to 
thought ; that we render visible the invisible." 

The great significance of constructive work, however, is 
found in the principle that education is but the development 
of the power to give outward manifestation and expression of 
the inner self. Not that creation with the hand is the highest 
expression of this ; but that the development of the power 
of this material manifestation is but the basis of the higher 
power of intellectual, moral, and spiritual expression in action 
crystalHzed into habits or into character. Therefore he held 
that for all education, — 

" The time has now come to exalt all work into free activity ; 
that is, to make it intelligent action. This can only take place 



664 History of Ediication 

when the law, according to which all formative activity pro- 
ceeds, is recognized and consciously applied, as it has been 
hitherto unconsciously applied. The occupation material of 
my method gives the means of unconscious application of the 
law on the children's part to rise to art in such a way as to 
come to their consciousness by degrees and be recognized as 
the guide and regulator of all formation. In no other way 
can human work be transformed into free activity. It can 
only become intellectual action out of what has been mere 
mechanical action when the occupation of the hand is at the 
same time the occupation of the mind. At the present time 
art alone can truly be called free activity, but every human 
work corresponds more or less with creative activity, and this 
is necessary in order to make man the image of his Divine 
Creator — a creator on his own part in miniature." 



Constructive work in the school thus has a deeper purpose 
than training in sense-perception, development of skill, exer- 
cise of physique, imparting of a mechanical process, or acqui- 
sition of a trade. It is the most concrete form of expression 
of ideas, a most definite process in the formation of habits 
or the shaping of character. 

Nature Study in the ScJiools. — Here again Pestalozzian 
and Froebelian, as well as other minor streams of educational 
thought, converge. What has come to pass in the actual 
study of nature in the schools is a resultant of them all. But 
with Froebel the basal principles underlying this study are 
quite different from those held by others. Least important of 
all with him was the simple knowledge of the facts of nature; 
most important of all was the moral improvement, the reli- 
gious uplift, the spiritual insight, which the child got from 
association with nature. But when the deeper symbolism is 
rejected, the study of nature yet retains its function as a 
moral discipline, since the world of ph3^sical life offers so 
many analogies with the world of mental and moral activities. 
As a source of natural interests and as affording opportu- 
nity for varied activity, nature study retains a place in ele- 



Psychological Tendency in Educatioji 665 

mentary instruction as influenced by Froebel, altogether aside 
from either the vakie of the facts taught or of the symbolical 
spiritual import. Thus, as the suggestive material for reading, 
writing, language work, constructive work, number work, 
nature study has come to play an important function in the 
school ; not, however, as based upon the old Pestalozzian 
idea of object teaching, but as based upon the more funda- 
mental Froebelian point of view of finding the basis for 
school work in native interests and spontaneous activities 
of the child as these are called forth by objects of nature 
around him. Even when all of these ideas concerning the 
function of nature study are rejected, Froebel has influenced 
fundamentally the conception of this study as it is conducted in 
all grades. For it is no longer nature analyzed and dissected 
according to the old formal classificatory science, but it is 
nature as life — the plant as developing, the animal as acting, 
the organ as functioning — that is studied. Thus, the Froe- 
belian influence, while in its symbolism it is most antago- 
nistic to the modern scientific attitude, yet in its conception 
of nature and of the value of science and the use to be made 
of it in the school it is quite in harmony with the modern 
scientific view. 

The Kindergarten. — The fundamental thought of the 
kindergarten is to aid the child to express himself and thus 
produce development. To accomplish this he must start 
from his native interests and tendencies to action. The work 
of the sc*hool must be based wholly upon "self-activity" and 
must culminate in the expression or use of the ideas or knowl- 
edge acquired in the process of the activity. The primary 
aim is not acquisition of knowledge, but growth or develop- 
ment, in which knowledge functions merely as a means to an 
end. Knowledge is, as it were, a subordinate- or by-product ; 
yet always essential, if growth is to. be secured. Both the 
acquisitive and assimilative processes — exalted into ends in 
all previous school procedures — are here wholly subordinated 



C66 History of Echication 

Both appear in every completed educational process as stages 
preliminary to, or incidental to, the expression or constructive 
process. 

The forms of expression of the child's nature which Froebel 
seized upon as of importance in this training were first ges- 
ture, second song, third language. Through these means 
Froebel sought to have the child express his feelings and 
ideas. He devoted the remainder of his life to the organization 
of material in such forms of play, games, constructive activi- 
ties, stories, and the like, as would assist the child and would 
furnish material to the teacher for directing the child's inter- 
ests and actions. So far as possible these means were to be 
coordinate. The story, for example, when told by the teacher, 
was to be expressed by the child, not only in his own lan- 
guage, but through song, or gesture or pictures, or construction 
of simple articles from paper, clay, or other convenient mate- 
rial. In this way ideas would be given, thought stimulated, 
the imagination vivified, the hands and eyes trained, the 
muscles coordinated, the moral nature strengthened through 
the effort to put into concrete objective form the higher 
motives and sentiments aroused. Thus the aim of educa- 
tional, many-sided development was to be secured. The 
chief materials of the kindergarten, aside from the songs, 
the Afiitter und Kose-licdcr, Froebel organized into a series 
of "gifts and occupations." These are introduced gradually 
and in order. As the child becomes familiar with the prop- 
erties of the one gift or the activities called forth by the 
occupation, he is led on to the next, which grow out of the pre- 
ceding, each introducing new impressions and repeating old 
ones. The distinction between the gifts and occupations, 
though commonly made, is an arbitrary one. Froebel himself 
called all the activities occupations, and the materials for them, 
gifts. But the distinction seems to bring out a most promi- 
nent tendency in the development of the Froebelian princi- 
ples ; namely, that a much greater stress has come to be 



Psychological Tendency in Educatioit 667 

placed upon the occupations than upon the gifts. While 
Froebel rendered the greatest service to education in thus 
transforming his principles into concrete schoolroom proced- 
ures, yet it is evident that many of these, including the songs, 
were appropriate only to his age and to the people with whom 
he was familiar, and that to keep his principles effective 
modification may be necessary in the present and future. 

EFFECTS OF THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MOVEMENTS ON 
SCHOOLS. The Pestalozzian Movement. — While yet at Burg- 
dorf, Pestalozzi's institute was frequented by numerous 
investigators, public men interested in education, students, 
even groups of students from various countries of Europe. 
The institute had been made a normal school, subsidized 
by the Swiss government. At Yverdun these conditions 
were intensified. Pestalozzian institutes were founded in 
Madrid, Naples, St. Petersburg. The monarchs of Russia, 
Prussia, Austria,, and of the Italian states were personally 
interested in the reforms ; and, as Pestalozzi said, any hedge 
schoolmaster, in order to succeed, had but to proclaim the use 
of Pestalozzian methods. In Switzerland itself the adoption 
of the new ideas was slow, owing partly to the fact that 
many of the cantons were under Roman Catholic control and 
partly to the fact that the Protestant cantons were now domi- 
nated by reactionary governments, naturally ultra-conserva- 
tive, while Pestalozzi and his ideas had ever been associated 
with the revolutionary propaganda. After the revolutionary 
movement of 1830 a more liberal spirit prevailed, normal 
schools were established, several under the principalship of 
former pupils or assistants of Pestalozzi, and the new ideas 
were gradually but generally adopted. 

Among the German states Wiirtemberg first fell under the 
new influence. During the first decade of the century Pes- 
talozzian enthusiasts had been appointed school inspectors 
and principals of normal schools. Prussia followed. The 



668 HistoTy of Eciitcatioft 

philosopher Fichte, in his address to the German people after 
the defeat at Jena in 1806, pointed out Pestalozzian education 
as the means of regeneration for the nation. The minister of 
education and the royal family were deeply concerned in the 
new educational movement. Picked young men were sent to 
Yverdun, and through them and the German assistants of 
Pestalozzi, who left Yverdun during the unfortunate disagree- 
ments among the staff, the new ideas were incorporated in 
the training of the teachers for the Prussian elementary 
schools. 

Though students from France, Spain, and other nations 
were trained at Yverdun and though some progress was made 
in popularizing the new methods, the spirit of absolutism was 
unfavorable to their rapid development. It was not until after 
the revolution of 1830 that the educational reform movement 
made any progress in France. Then, especially under Victor 
Cousin, minister of education, great advance was made, 
notably in the training of teachers. 

In England, that which received acceptance was a modified 
form of Pestalozzianism resulting from its combination with 
the prevaihng monitorial and infant schools (see pp. 724- 
727). Consequently it was the more formal aspects of spe- 
cial methods rather than the real spirit of the reforms that 
dominated. This was chiefly through the work of the 
Mayos, brother and sister, who worked during the second 
quarter of the century. 

Through England came much of the Pestalozzian influence 
exerted on the United States, and to this is largely due the 
formal and even superficial character of much of it, relating 
as it does or did to petty methods. However, not all of it 
was of this character, for the movement for the training of 
teachers, as well as the character of this training, were out 
growths of the Pestalozzian ideas. From the time of Neef, 
one of Pestalozzi's assistants, who was induced by a philan- 
thropic American to settle in Philadelphia in 1808, sporadic 



Psychological Tendency in Education 669 

instances of the transplanting of the new ideas occurred. The 
translation (1835) of Cousin's Report on the State of Public 
Instfitction in Prussia, which did so much for the reform of 
the French schools, had great influence upon educational 
leaders in America. From the results of the reform move- 
ment, especially as he saw it in Germany, Horace Mann drew 
many of his ideas and much of his inspiration. His Seventh 
Annual Report, one of the most influential educational docu- 
ments ever published in America, embodies the results of his 
personal investigation. The most specific source of this influ- 
ence, however, was what is known as the Oswego movement, 
begun in i860. The ideas of this movement came indirectly 
from the Mayo movement in England and centered largely 
about the use of objects as the basis of instruction. The result 
was a previously unknown attention to the technique of edu- 
cation and to the details of special method that was the chief 
chaiacteristic of normal school instruction during the genera- 
tion following. Hence it comes that, for the most part, Si 
far as principle is concerned, our schools are yet upon th( 
Pestalozzian basis, though the special methods of applying 
these principles have been much improved. | 

One other practical effect of the Pestalozzian method or! 
schools deserves at least mention ; that is the new basis whicK 
it gave for the care of social dependents and defectives] 
especially paupers, semi-criminals, deaf-mutes and the blind. 
From Pestalozzi's institutions for the poor sprang the agricul-l 
tural colonies, especially those for juvenile offenders. The 
industrial occupations furnished a reformatory element hith- 
erto wanting in criminal punishment. Guided by the princi- 
ples of his master, one of Pestalozzi's assistants established 
a school for deaf-mutes. The object method of teaching 
introduced hitherto unknown possibilities of developing such 
defective classes, while the industrial element gave them 
the prospect of economic independence, which was both a 
great gain for society and a basis for self-respect and self- 



670 History of Education 

confidence hitherto denied these unfortunates. /'Fl\)m these 
methods have developed the modern care and' the methods 
of education of these classes. '^ 

The Herbartian Movement, being, as we have noted, 
largely one of principle, is not to be traced with any exactitude. 
The Herbartian propaganda, however, furthered as it has 
been by groups of educators devoted to the development or 
the popularization of his thought, is readily described. It is 
the former which has specific interest in the history of educa- 
tion, and here we must be content with indicating the extent 
to which Herbart's thought has entered into the educational 
consciousness of to-day, as that consciousness is determining, 
in a practical way, the work of our schools. Undoubtedly, in 
this sense, the Herbartian thought has entered very largely 
into the best work of the ordinary school, for the progressive 
teacher everywhere, however unconscious he may be of the 
ultimate origin of those influences, shares to some extent in 
the educational purposes and endeavors of the time. 

The establishment of pedagogical seminaries and experi- 
mental or practice schools in connection with the universities 
was one of the more important educational works of Herbart, 
and at the same time the chief means by which his ideas and 
methods were brought to bear on the public schools. The 
seminaries at the Universities of Jena, Leipzig, and Halle 
were the more famous of these, and especially developed the 
Herbartian doctrines and applied them to practical work. 
At the first of these, Professor Stoy, later Professor Rein, 
have done most in applying these principles to elemen- 
ary school work through, the elaboration of general and 
special methods. It is from this course that the American 
influence has proceeded. From Professor Tuiskon Ziller, at 
Leipzig, came the more independent development of Herbart's 
original doctrine, especially its elaboration as the basis of the 
school curriculum, of the culture epoch theory suggested by 
Herbart and the details of the theory of concentration oi 



, Psychological Tendency in Education 671 

studies also suggested in principle by Herbart. Around each 
center has grown up a very extensive literature. From these 
two universities have gone out the most widespread influ- 
ences, through trained teachers and normal schools and 
university instructors. Through these combined means the 
German schools have responded to these more advanced 
ideas and have, so far as the character of instruction is con- 
cerned, reached a higher degree of excellence than any other 
schools. 

In the United States the dates of publication of the Her- 
bartian literature will indicate of how recent origin the move- 
ment is, though, to be sure, there is an extended magazine 
literature of somewhat earlier date. Though there were 
many other contributing forces, the most immediate response 
to this discussion was the Report of the Committee of Fif- 
teen on Elementary Schools made to the National Educa- 
tional Association in 1895. The aim of this report was to 
unify the work of the elementary school, to find a basis for 
that unity in a curriculum embodying somjB" form of correla- 
tion of studies, and to prompt to better friethods of instruc- 
tion. A similar report five years earlier l)y a " Committee of 
Ten " aimed to perform this work of unification for secondary 
education, and to bring about a closer articulation of element- 
ary, secondary, and higher education. Through such means 
a very general influence is being exerted on the schools of 
our country toward placing the character of instruction on a 
higher basis than that reached through the Pestalozzian 
movements of some half century (jr more ago. 

The Froebelian Movement. — A^ has been suggested, the 
influence of the Froebelian principles is practically coexten- 
sive with the most important educational tendencies of the 
present time. An analysis of these will make evident the 
fundamental character of the influence of Froebel on schools. 
The application which Froebel himself made of his principles 
to the kindergarten is being made by others to more advanced 



6y'j. History of Ed^i cation 

phases of education. All that can be sketched here is the 
spread of the kindergarten as an institution. 

In Germany a number of institutions similar to that at 
Keilhau were established before Froebel's death. But in 
185 1, a year before that event, kindergartens were prohibited 
by the Prussian government on account of their supposed 
revolutionary character. The Baroness Bertha von Maren- 
holtz-Bulovv, to whom the actual popularization of the kinder- 
garten was largely due, transferred her activities, for the 
time being, to England. Though this prohibition was re- 
moved after ten years, kindergartens have not yet been incor- 
porated into the public school systems. While many private 
ones exist, they are not considered schools. Their teachers 
are not required to comply with the standards required of 
elementary teachers and, though they are under the super- 
vision of school inspectors, they may not teach anything 
which will duplicate the work of the elementary schools. 
Consequently in the work of these schools there has been 
comparatively little development. 

France best illustrates the extensive development of schools 
for very young children. But these infant schools — the 
ecoles niaternelles — are rather a development of the infant 
school movement than of the kindergarten. To a very slight 
degree do they embody the principles of Froebel — certainly 
not his fundamental one of self-activity. While these schools 
have developed for the most part since the War of 1870, and 
while their establishment is optional with the communes, yet 
in them are trained half a million children of the ages from 
two to six. 

First introduced into England in 1854, and advocated by a 
number of prominent men, such as the novelist Dickens, the 
kindergarten was established only in a few instances and then 
as a private institution for the wealthier classes. Not until 
1874 did the ideas of the kindergarten begin to modify the 
work of the infant schools (see p. 726), which by this time had 



Psychological Tendency in Education 673 

been incorporated as a part of the public school system. It 
was the procedure and methods rather than the principles and 
spirit of the kindergarten that were grafted on to this domi- 
nant institution. 

The first kindergarten in the United States was established 
by Elizabeth Peabody in Boston in i860, though it was not 
until 1868 that she succeeded in embodying the spirit and 
purpose of Froebel's work. A number of private kindergar- 
tens were soon established. Under the leadership of Dr. W. 
H. Harris and Miss Susan Blow, — among the most prominent 
of Froebelian exponents in this country, — the kindergarten 
was first made a part of the public school system in St. Louis 
in 1873. Since that time the movement has developed until 
there is scarcely a city of any size but what has incorporated 
the kindergarten as a component part of its public schools. 



REFERENCES 

Pestalozzi. 

'BdiYns.vd, Pestaloszi and PestaloBszamsin. (New York, 1859.) 

De Guimps, Pestalozzi. (Syracuse, i88g.) 

Kruesi, Life and Works of Pestalozzi. (New York, 1875.) 

Neef, Sketch of a Plan and Method of EdncaJio7i. (Philadelphia, 1808.) 

Pestalozzi, Leonard and Gertrude. (Eng. Abstract, Boston, 1885.) 

Pestalozzi, How Gertrude Teaches her Children. (Syracuse, 1898.) 

Pestalozzi, Evening Hours of a Hermit, in Barnard^s Jour^ial, Vol. VI, 

p. 169. 
Pinloche, Pestalozzi. (New York, 1901.) 

Herbart. 

De Garmo, Herbart and Herbartians. (New York, 1895.) 

De Garmo, Essentials of Method. (Boston, 1889.) 

Eckofif, Herbarfs A B C of Sense Perception. (New York, 1896.) 

Felkin, Herbarfs Science of Education. (London, 1892.) 

Herbart, Psychology. (New York, 1891.) 

Herbart, Outlines of Pedagogical Doctrines (Lange & De Garmo). (New 

York, I go I.) 
Herbart, in Eckoff and Felkin, as above. 
Lange, Apperception. (New York, 1892.) 

2X 



674 History of Education 

Rein, Outlines of Pedagogics. (New York, 1893.) 

Ufer, Introductio7i to the Pedagogy of Herbart. (Boston, 1894.) 

Van Liew, Herbart and tlie Development of his Pedagogical Doctrines. 

(London, 1893.) 
Report of the Coiiiinittee of Ten. (United States Bureau of Education, 

1890.) 
Report of the Coniinittee of Fifteen, in Educational Review, Vol. IX, p. 209. 

Froebel. 

Blow, Symbolic Education. (New York, 1894.) 

Blow, Letters to a Mother on the Philosophy of Froebel. (New York, 1 899.) 

Bowen, Froebel and Education through Self-activity. (New York, 1897.) 

Froebel, Education of Man. (New York, 1894.) 

Froebel, Education by Development. (New York, 1899.) 

Froebel, Aictobiography. (Syracuse, 1889.) 

Froebel, Pedagogics of the Kindergarten. (New York, 1902.) 

Hughes, FroebeVs Educational Laws. (New York, 1899.) 

y{2iXQ.Vi\\o\\.z-'?iv\o\s, Reminiscences of Froebel. (Boston, 1887.) 

MacVannel, TJie Philosophy of Froebel, in Teachers'" College Record, Vol. IV, 

No. 5. (New York, 1903.) 
Quick, Educational Reformers, pp. 384-413. 

General. 

Buchner, Educational Theory of Kant. (Philadelphia, 1904.) 
Churton, Kant on Education. (London, 1899.) 
Rosenkranz, Philosophy of Edtication. (New York, 1894.) 



TOPICS FOR FURTHER INVESTIGATION 

1. What similarity is there discoverable between the educational ideas 
of Rousseau and those of Pestalozzi? Of Herbart? Of Froebel? Of 
Kant? Of Richter? 

2. Was there a consistent scheme of psychological thought in Pesta- 
lozzi's teachings? 

3. What general conclusions concerning the change in the conception 
of education can you form from a comparison of definitions drawn from 
the later eighteenth and early nineteenth century, with those formulated 
during the last quarter century ? 

4. Point out some of the errors in practice in higher stages of educa- 
tion resulting from applying principles formulated from a consideration of 
the elementary stages alone. 



Psychological Tendency in Education 675 

5. State in greater detail the educational philosophy of Kant. Of 
Froebel. Of Rosenkranz. 

6. What criticism of Pestalozzi does Herbart oflFer in his A B C of 
Sense Perception ? 

7. What practices in your own or in any selected schoolroom are due 
to the influence of Pestalozzi? Of Herbart? Of Froebel? 

8. What agreement do you find between the psychological theories 
of Herbart as applied to education and those of Pestalozzi? Those of 
Froebel? 

9. What did Froebel owe to Pestalozzi? 

10. What contrast exists between the fundamental conception of the 
mind held by Herbart and that held by Froebel? 

11. To what extent is the work of the elementary schools of our coun- 
try now controlled by the principle formulated by Pestalozzi? By Herbart? 
By Froebel? 

12. To what extent is it the duty of the school to give instruction in 
morals? To what extent is formation of character its aim? 

13. To what extent can the work of instruction be made to bear 
directly upon conduct according to the Herbartian theory? 

14. To what extent is the constructive work of the school based upon 
the Herbartian principle? To what extent is this justified? 

15. What is tlie relation of interest to this process of character-forming 
instruction? 

16. To what extent can interest be made the basis of school work? 

17. What harmonization, if any, can be made between interest and the 
disciplinary conception of education? Is the idea of interest as the con- 
trolling principle of education incompatible with a training in will power? 

18. To what extent does the importance of interest in education de- 
pend upon Herbart's doctrine of the precedence of ideas over volitions? 

19. To what extent is there a conflict between individuality and charac- 
ter as stated by Herbart? 

20. To what extent then can development of individuality be made the 
aim of education? 

21. What is the basis of correlation of studies according to Herbart? 
What further reason can be assigned? 

22. Which has the greater merit, the plan of concentration of studies 
or that of coordination of studies ? 

23. What is the difference in the psychological theory underlying 
the two? In the sociological theory? 

24. Describe any particular concrete plan of concentration. Of 
coordination. 



676 History of Education 

25. To what extent can the subject-matter of instruction be drawn 
directly from tlie life activities of the child? Illustrate in detail. 

26. . To what extent can the subject-matter of instruction, or the out- 
come of instruction, be brought to bear directly on the life of the child? 
Illustrate in detail. 

27. To what extent did Froebel's practical experiences in his early 
life contribute to the formation of his educational theories? 

28. What contrasts exist between the philosophy and metaphysics 
of Froebel and that of Herbart? 

29. Trace out in any particular school or locality the respects in which 
the principles first embodied in kindergarten work have affected the 
work of the elementary grades. 

30. What is the value and what the danger of symbolism in education? 

31. What is the relation of religion and education according to 
Froebel? 

32. If the relationship is so intimate as held by Froebel, how can you 
justify the exclusion of instruction in religion from the jDublic schools? 

33. Compare FroebePs idea of unity in school work with Herbart's 
idea of correlation. WHiich is the more practicable? 

34. Compare the various descriptions of self-activity given by Froebel, 
and from them form a definition. 

35. To what extent is Froebel's idea of self-activity identical with 
those more recently formulated? (^E.g. in Harris's Psychological Foiaida- 
tions of Education . ) 

36. Wkat various forms of self-activity can you discover among the 
children of any given schoolroom? 

■})1 . Why is it that play and games possess so little educational value 
in American life and schools? 

38. What educational value is obtained from play and games in the 
English public schools? How is it obtained? 

39. What objections are there to symbolic interpretation in nature 
study with the little child? 

40. To what extent is the principle of constructive work embodied in 
the occupations found in the more advanced grades? 



CHAPTER XII 

THE SCIENTIFIC TENDENCY IN EDUCATION 

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. — The movement begun 
by the sense-reahsts in the seventeenth century, which might 
have been termed the earher phase of the scientific tendency, 
finds no break between that time and the late eighteenth or 
early nineteenth century. But the great development of 
the physical and biological sciences during this intervening 
period, the influence of the naturalistic tendency in exalting 
the importance of the phenomena of nature, and the inade- 
quacy of the old learning and of the humanistic education as 
a whole, gave unprecedented importance to this tendency 
from the opening of the nineteenth century. For a consider- 
able portion of the century an open conflict was waged be- 
tween the advocates of the old, staking their all upon the 
disciplinary value of the classics (Chapter IX), and the advo- 
cates of the new scientific learning, refusing to permit the 
possibility of any compromise of view. The scientific ten- 
dency possessed two general characteristics : As a contrast to 
the prevailing disciplinary view that the value of the subject 
lay in the process of acquiring it, the scientific conception 
placed all emphasis upon the importance of the content. 
This position has been previously described under sense- 
realism. Knowledge of natural phenomena was conceived 
to be the source of all important truth and of all social prog- 
ress. Hence it was for the interest of the individual, from 
both the philosophical and the psychological point of view, 
and for the interest of society that the new subject-matter 

677 



678 History of Education 

should replace the old in schools. The most characteristic 
features of educational discussions of the latter half of the 
nineteenth century have been those relating to the curricu- 
lum. The other feature, also mentioned in Chapter VIII, 
in recent times of much more importance on account of the 
better organization of the natural sciences, was the value of 
the inductive method in instruction in every subject. 

A survey of the development of the physical and biological 
sciences from the sixteenth century to the present time will 
be most helpful in throwing light upon the development of 
educational thought and practices. Such a survey cannot 
be made in a brief space, but the material can be gleaned 
from the various histories of science. 

EDUCATION FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE 
NATURAL SCIENTISTS. — We have previously seen that, 
the sense-realists would base education largely upon a study 
of the phenomena of nature and would have even the lan- 
guages taught through the study of objects ; that the natu- 
ralists of the Rousseau type held that only the education 
which came from natural phenomena and from the natural 
development of forces in human nature was good ; and that 
the practical influence of Pestalozzianism was little more than 
an insistence upon object teaching in the schools, with the 
resulting training in sense-perception. These forces combine 
in varying proportions with the new force that comes from 
the development of scientific knowledge and the perfecting 
of the organization of the various natural sciences in demand- 
ing a wholly unprecedented attention to the sciences in edu- 
cation. It is not until a subject of human interest or aspect 
of human experience receives a definite logical formulation 
that it can demand a place in the instruction of the school. 
The perfection of organization of grammatical, linguistic, and 
mathematical studies made it difficult to effect any change in 
the orgranization of the school curriculum. There resulted 



Scientific Tendency in Education 679 

a prolonged struggle against the prevailing disciplinary or 
classical-mathematical education for the recognition of the 
sciences. This produced a most extensive literature, which 
can be noticed here only by the discussion of two or three 
of the most notable movements and the work of two of the 
most notable representatives. 

CULTURE DEMANDED BY MODERN LIFE.— Among 
the Teutonic peoples, as has been shown in the preceding 
chapter, the opposition to the dominant disciplinary educa- 
tion was based upon psychological and philosophical grounds, 
and consequently centered more around the question of 
method. Among the English-speaking peoples the opposi- 
tion was based largely upon practical and " common-sense " 
grounds, and centered more around the question of subject- 
matter. Hence the dominant, though not exclusive, charac- 
teristic of the continental educational movement was psycho- 
logical ; that of the English race, at least in the character of 
the new subject-matter demanded, was scientific. Several 
decades before the educational . writings of Spencer and 
Huxley appeared, the conflict between the dominant disci- 
plinary education and the scientific education had begun. 

The earlier phase of the movement, that of the early half 
of the nineteenth century, was not on the highest level, for it 
was led by enthusiastic and well-designing reformers rather 
than by men of any broad scientific reputation or knowledge 
such as later appeared with Spencer and Huxley, or by men 
who had any such fundamental grasp of the educational 
problem as had Herbart or Froebel. Most prominent among 
these was George Combe (i 788-1 858), who represented a 
considerable body of influential followers and headed a 
movement of practical reform of great influence. Discred- 
ited then by his advocacy of non-sectarian education, termed 
secular education, which to those generations meant a non- 
religious and hence wholly inadequate education, these men 



68o History of Education 

are now discredited by their belief in the science of phre- 
nology as the basis of educational practices. 

Two general lines of argument were followed by these 
earlier advocates of science. First, the distinction which 
exists between "instrumental" knowledge and positive 
knowledge ; between that which furnished the means to gain 
further knowledge and that which had intrinsic worth for 
the individual. The former included all the linguistic and 
much of the mathematical knowledge ; thus languages, gram- 
mar, v/riting, much of arithmetic, algebra, and all of pure 
mathematics merely served the purpose of providing means 
for obtaining a knowledge of the physical, intellectual, moral, 
social, political, and religious world around us, which was in 
itself of great value to the individual in regulating his life and 
promoting his own and the social welfare. They considered 
that the dominant disciplinary education of their day directed 
all attention to subjects that were merely instruments and 
hence never reached the subjects that really gave one the 
knowledge necessary to make life successful, useful, and 
happy. 

The second line of argument considered education from 
much the same point as did the disciplinarians, and in this 
respect possessed the same relationship to the dominant 
education as did a popular phase, the psychological tendency. 
Education should not only give to the individual such knowl- 
edge as would enable him successfully and intelligently to 
perform the various duties of life, but it should give the best 
possible training to all of his mental faculties in order that this 
great end might be attained. The old faculty conception of the 
mind prevailed, and with this the idea that it was a function 
of education to train these faculties. As one of these early 
scientists and psychologists states the problem, the work of 
education is the " strengthening and enlivening, by means of 
exercise of all the faculties of mind and body composing the 
human being, to the best condition for exercising their func- 



Scientific Tendency in Education 68 1 

tions on their proper objects." This training of the facul- 
ties, which constituted all of education to the discipHnarian 
and was the phase of education to which the psychologist 
devoted the greatest attention, though in a manner radically 
different from that of the disciplinarians, became to the 
scientist subordinate. In other words, for these latter the 
training came as a by-product of the process of gaining 
the knowledge that was necessary as an instrument or that 
had positive value in itself. 

The same general arguments appear in popular form in the 
latter half of the century. Youmans in the essay on Mental 
Discipline in Education sums up the problem thus: — 

" With the growing perception of the relation between 
human thought and human life it will be seen that by far 
the most priceless of all things is mental power ; while one of 
the highest offices of education must be strictly to economize 
and wisely to expend it. Science made the basis of culture 
will accomphsh this result. . . . The ideal of the higher 
education ... is a scheme of study, which, while it repre- 
sents the present state of knowledge and affords a varied 
cultivation and a harmonious discipline, shall at the same 
time best prepare for the reasonable work of Hfe." 

A generation earher similar demands were made and simi- 
lar principles of relation were formulated by Combe and his 
confreres, and embodied before the middle of the century in 
"the secular schools." According to these early scientists, 
the subjects which demand first consideration are those which 
treat of man's bodily constitution, anatomy and physiology. 
Second, come those which treat of man's mental constitution. 
Third, come the physical sciences, — those that treat of man's 
relation to external nature. Fourth, are those that treat of 
man's relations to his fellow-men, — the moral, social, and 
political sciences. Finally, comes instruction in religion. 

Thus, according to the scientific view, the knowledge of 
value in education is that demanded by modern life. In 



682 History of Education 

regard to subject-matter in education the scientific view agrees 
witli the sociological. In regard to the foundation of method 
it agrees with the psychological ; for the thought common to 
all this scientific discussion is that training or discipline is 
not developed through any special activity, but that it comes 
through the activity that is valued in itself. 

In their more recent form the views of those who solve the 
problems of education from the point of view of modern 
science are in advance of the arguments stated above, or at 
least are stated in somewhat different terms. These views 
do not differ materially from such as are expressed by those 
who approach the problem from the social significance of 
education, and may be summarized as follows : — 

The elements which now enter into culture are very dif- 
ferent from those of a few hundred years ago. New litera- 
tures have developed to vie with those of the Greeks and 
Romans ; the arts have been perfected beyond the dreams of 
the imagination of those ages ; the new sciences have been 
created and there now exists a knowledge of nature and of 
her forces that in comparison with the interpretation of pre- 
ceding centuries seems most exhaustive and positive. Conse- 
quently it is necessary to define anew the liberal education. 
Studies are no longer considered to be liberal in proportion 
to their remoteness from practical bearing, but, on the con- 
trary, in proportion to their direct relationship to life. A 
liberal education is not one of no practical bearing, but one 
which fits a man so well for his profession, for his life as a 
citizen, and for all of his activities in hfe, that he is very 
much broader than that profession, seeing broadly the import 
of his actions in his life in institutions. Civil, mechanical, 
chemical engineering, the practical application of any of 
the sciences may become learned professions, and the prepa- 
ration for these may in itself offer a liberal education, if the 
individual is so equipped with a knowledge of the fundamen- 
tal sciences that he is perfectly "free" through his mastery 



Scientific Tendency in Education 683 

of his subject, and " free " in the Hfe that grows out from and 
is based upon that profession. Such an education must con- 
tain more than mere rudiments or the technical instruction 
necessary for a practitioner in these arts ; it must include 
a thorough mastery of them. For such a career the study 
of the French and German languages, contributing as these 
literatures may in the broadest manner to one's success by 
opening to him the experience of other peoples of advanced 
civilization, is far more hberal than the ordinary instruction 
in Greek or Latin would be. Similarly the social, political, 
and economic sciences, contributing as they do a knowledge 
of the complex activities, interests, and forces of modern 
social life, are liberal in the sense that the old disciplinary 
use of mathematics could not be. True, a man in such Hnes 
of scientific activity would need a most thorough course in 
mathematics, but for an entirely different purpose from that 
held by the disciplinarians, with a different selection of the 
branches of mathematics and with considerable change in 
method. 

A liberal education is one containing the best culture 
material of the life for which it is designed to prepare ; and 
it is liberal only to the extent that it includes these materials. 
The natural sciences most largely contributed to the culture of 
the nineteenth century. In a similar way the social sciences 
are now being developed, with much of inspiration, purpose, 
and method borrowed from the natural sciences. Every 
aspect of life and thought of the present age has been modi- 
fied and given its tone and color by the development of the 
natural sciences. Therefore, an education that constitutes 
a liberal preparation for present life must include a large 
element of these studies. 

But since it is impossible that every youth to be educated 
should master even the rudiments of all these sciences in 
addition to much of the old material, the representatives of 
this view of education have usually contented themselves with 



684 Histoiy of Ediication 

demanding freedom of choice in the selection of studies and 
the recognition by educational authorities of the equivalence 
in value of the sciences in the course of study. In that this 
demand for the freedom of selection of subjects is but another 
interpretation of the education of interest, the scientific tend- 
ency here agrees with the psychological. 

With the prevalence of such a conception of a liberal edu- 
cation and such an organization of its subjects, it will be pos- 
sible for the ordinary practitioner in any of the professions to 
combine a liberal with a professional or technical education. 
So long as these two types of education are kept so entirely 
distinct that the person who has the one cannot have the 
other, and so long as the liberal education is restricted to the 
mastery of a few subjects to which the majority of men who 
enter the intellectual callings in life cannot devote time, it 
must follow that the great majority, even of those who lead 
and sustain the life of a community, will continue to be denied 
the privileges of a liberal education. 

In England the men who have contributed to the establish- 
ment of this view, chief among whom were Spencer and 
Huxley, have labored for the most part outside of educational 
institutions ; in America the most prominent of such leaders, 
notably President Eliot of Harvard, have been in connection 
with universities. 

THE THEORY OF EDUCATION FORMULATED BY THE 

NATURAL SCIENTISTS. — While there were numerous 
writers of minor importance who continued the line of edu- 
cational thought from the time of the sense-realists, it is 
not until the middle of the nineteenth century, when the 
organization of the natural sciences had become perfected, 
that a modern presentation of their educational claims could 
be made. The first of these, and yet the most influential, 
at least for Anglo-Saxon thought, was that by Herbert 
Spencer (1820-1903). 



Scientific Tendency in Education 685 

"Education, Intellectual, Moral, and Physical," by Herbert 
Spencer, was issued in i860. The fundamental characteristic 
of the scientific tendency is revealed early in the treatise in 
his discussion of the importance of the selection of subjects 
of study as the vital theory in education. 

" If there needs any further evidence of the rude, undevel- 
oped character of our education, we have it in the fact that 
the comparative worths of different kinds of knowledge have 
been as yet scarcely even discussed — much less discussed in 
a methodic way with definite results. Not only is it that no 
standard of relative values has yet been agreed upon; but 
the existence of any such standard has not been conceived 
in any clear manner. And not only is it that the existence 
of any such standard has not been clearly conceived ; but the 
need for it seems to have been scarcely even felt. Men read 
books on this topic and attend lectures on that ; decide that 
their children shall be instructed in these branches of knowl- 
edge and shall not be instructed in those ; and all under the 
guidance of mere custom, or liking or prejudice; without 
ever considering the enormous importance of determining 
in some rational way what things are really most worth 
learning. It is true that in all circles we have occasional 
rema.ks on the importance of ^his or the other order of 
information. But whether the degree of its importance 
justifies the expenditure of the time needed to acquire it; 
and whether there are not things of more importance to 
which the time might be better devoted ; are queries which, 
if raised at all, are disposed of quite summarily, according to 
personal predilections. It is true, also, that from time to 
time we hear revived the standing controversy respecting 
the comparative merits of classics and mathematics. Not 
only, however, is this controversy carried on in an empirical 
manner, with no reference to an ascertained criterion, but 
the question at issue is totally insignificant when compared 
with the general question of which it is part. To suppose 
that deciding whether a mathematical or a classical educa- 
tion is the best, is deciding what is the proper atrriaduin, is 
much the same thing as to suppose that the whole of dietetics 
lies in determining whether or not bread is more nutritive 
than potatoes." 



686 History of Education 

The new purpose, basis, and method of education empha 
sized by Bacon are here again clearly presented. The pur- 
pose of education is defined as pre paration for complete 
living; and this in turn is judged largely from the point 
of view of the welfare of the individual, though of the indi- 
vidual as living in fully developed society. Rousseau's 
influence is evident, but the thought appears in a radically 
modified form. " How to live } — that is the essential ques- 
tion for us. Not how to live in the mere material sense 
only, but in the widest sense. The general problem which 
comprehends every special problem is — the right ruling of 
conduct in all directions under all circumstances. . . . To 
prepare us for complete living is the function which education 
has to discharge ; and the only rational mode of judging of 
any educational course is to judge in what degree it dis- 
charges such function." 

This preparation for complete living consists, first, in the 
acquisition of knowledge that is best adapted for the devel- 
opment of individual and social life ; and, secondly, in the 
development of the power to use this knowledge. What 
knowledge is of most worth becomes, as with Rousseau and 
with Bacon, the chief question of educational importance. 
To this question Spencer gives this definite categorical 
answer. Knowledge which leads directly to self-preserva- 
tion, such as the sciences of physiology, hygiene, physics, 
and chemistry, is of first importance. Knowledge which 
leads indirectly to self-preservation through the sciences and 
arts relating to the securing of food, clothing, and shelter 
comes next/-; Third, in order of importance, is the knowledge 
of rearing of offspring, which, in strange contrast with the 
attention given to the breeding of animals and the training 
required of a builder of bridges or a maker of shoes, is 
wholly neglected. On the other hand, any parent or teacher 
is presumed to be capable of bringing up a child without any 
preparation. > Fourth in order is the knowledge of social and 



Scientific Tendency in Education 687 

political life such as shall make one an intelligent citizen and 
neigliBor. ^- Last of all comes the knowledge of literature, 
art, eesthetics, including foreign languages and literature, 
which, since occupying the leisure of life, should also occupy 
the leisure of education. Thus the natural sciences demanded 
by the first three needs take precedence over the social 
sciences demanded by the fourth need and over the "liberal" 
or "culture" subjects, at that time the basis of all school 
work. While this constitutes a negation of the Renaissance 
emphasis upon literature and languages, it is not, as with 
Rousseau, a denial of the value of knowledge ; but, on the 
contrary, an altogether new emphasis upon that value. 

Since Spencer is the one English writer on the subject of 
education during the nineteenth century that has exerted any 
particular influence and received any particular attention, 
many criticisms not altogether valid are passed upon his 
ideas. A statement of these objections and of the points 
wherein they err is desirable, in order to understand clearly 
Spencer's position. 

The most frequent objection is made to its utilitarian char- 
acter, — to its somewhat radical application of Rousseau's test, 
" Of what use 1 " While this test led to a rejection of all that 
was held most dear in traditional educational work, especially 
of the idea with strong classical support that a subject lost 
its educational value as it gained practical value, yet the utili- 
tarianism of the naturalists and the scientists was almost 
identical with the " practical " of Kant and the " aesthetic " of 
Herbart, or what is commonly meant by the term " moral." 
That which affects conduct directly, improves life, benefits 
man individually or in society, is " utilitarian." It is true that 
Spencer sacrifices some of the amenities of life, but chiefly 
that he may gain for the neglected many what hitherto has 
been the perquisite of the privileged few. It is said that 
Spencer sacrifices that which is higher in life — its culture — 
for that which is lower — its practical advantage. On the con- 



688 History of Education 

trary, he emphasizes the importance of the cultural elements 
m an entirely new way ; for his argument is that all these 
phases of knowledge should be emphasized and that every 
individual should be permitted some attainment or acquisi- 
tion in each. In place of an educational and social scheme 
which gave to a limited few the education of a life of leisure 
without any of the practically useful, and to others an edu- 
cation of the most meager character in the dullest routine 
of life, he demands such a readjustment as shall give to 



every individual an education including some of all these 
elements emphasized in the order mentioned. 

Another criticism is found in the objection, raised from 
the pedagogical point of view, that education is not a prepa- 
ration for life, but that it is life. To a certain extent this 
objection is a mere juggling with words. So far as valid, it 
is that Spencer overestimated the value of knowledge as a 
preparation. This is characteristic of the entire scientific 
tendency. Yet this error is combined with a truer concep- 
tion of the nature of knowledge than was the case in previous 
educational theories where the same defect existed. On the 
other hand, by way of justification, it must be recognized 
that his position is but a reaction against the over-emphasis 
on method given by the disciplinarians and, in a quite dif- 
ferent way, by those representing the psychological tendency. 
It will be recognized that, on this point, the scientific tend- 
ency is a more radical reaction against the disciplinary view 
of education than was the psychological. 

In answer to the second question, that is, how to develop 
the power to use the knowledge, Spencer is far less specific 
and direct. His answer, which is a begging of the question, is 
that the acquisition of the knowledge of most worth will give 
the power to use it, otherwise there would be a violation of 
the harmony and economy of nature. The juggling with the 
term " nature " results in this obiter dictwn, which is in curi- 
ous contradiction to the process of reasoning recommended 



Scientific Teiideiicy in Edtication 689 

by the scientist. So far as the individual is concerned, nature 
is not economical but notoriously prodigal. More specifically 
he answers that the study of the sciences will result in a 
better training in memory, in the use of the understanding 
and of the judgment. But in the argument he seems to be 
wholly oblivious of the fact that linguistic training offers 
anything more than a training in memory. 

In the essay on Intellectual Education he discusses more 
fully the question of method, but adds nothing to the ideas 
of those who attempted to base education upon psychology. 
Of these he seems to be conversant with only one, Pestalozzi. 
Spencer's discussions consist only in an elaboration of a num- 
ber of Pestalozzi's principles, such as that education should pro- 
ceed from the simple to the complex, from the concrete to the 
abstract, from empirical to rational, and should be pleasurable ; 
he adds nothing of value to them. The one principle, pre- 
viously noted under Rousseau, that all moral training should 
result from allowing the child to suffer the natural conse- 
quences of his own action, is emphasized as the essence of 
moral education. 

It will be seen that the one great contribution of Spencer 
was to reemphasize the three points first defined by Bacon, to 
state these in terms of modern science and of modern educa- 
tional thought, and to put the arguments in a form that would 
appeal to the nineteenth-century thought. 

Thomas H. Huxley (1825-1895) accomplished more for the 
actual extension of education in the natural sciences than 
any other Englishman. As member of the first London 
School Board, as university professor, as lecturer on edu- 
cational and scientific topics, and as a writer, he did more 
in a practical way than Spencer through his one famous 
treatise. Though Huxley's writings or addresses on educa- 
tion are very numerous, his main points are but a reemphasis 
of those made by Spencer, Bacon, and others, put in a some- 
what different form. The practical purpose, the realistic 



690 Histoiy of Education 

basis, the criticism of the prevailing literary and classical 
education, is given in the following trenchant passage: — ■ 

" Now let us pause to consider this wonderful state of 
affairs ; for the time will come when EngUshmen will quote 
it as the stock example of the stolid stupidity of their ances- 
tors in the nineteenth century. The most thoroughly com- 
mercial people, the greatest voluntary wanderers and colonists 
the world has ever seen, are precisely the middle classes of 
this country. If there be a people which has been busy mak- 
ing history on the great scale for the last three hundred years, 
— and the most profoundly interesting history, — history which, 
if it happened to be that of Greece or Rome, we should study 
with avidity — it is the Enghsh. If there be a people which, 
during the same period, has developed a remarkable Kterature, 
it is our own. If there be a nation whose prosperity depends 
absolutely and wholly upon their mastery over the forces of 
nature, upon their intelligent apprehension of, and obedience 
to, the laws of creation, and distribution of wealth, and of the 
stable equihbrium of the forces of society, it is precisely this 
nation. And yet this is what these wonderful people tell 
their sons : ' At the cost of from one to two thousand pounds 
of our hard-earned money, we devote twelve of the most pre- 
cious years of your lives to school. There you shall toil, or 
be supposed to toil ; but there you shall not learn one single 
thing of all those you will most want to know directly you 
leave school and enter upon the practical business life. You 
will in all probability go into business, but you shall not know 
where, or how, any article of commerce is produced, or the 
difference between an export or an import, or the meaning 
of the word " capital." You will very likely settle in a colony, 
but you shall not know whether Tasmania is part of New 
South Wales, or wV^'Z't'/'j'^. . . . Veryprobably you may become 
a manufacturer, but you shall not be provided with the means 
of understanding the working of one of your own steam 
engines or the nature of the raw products you employ; and, 
when you are asked to buy a patent, you shall not have the 
slightest means of judging whether the inventor is an impostor 
who is contravening the elementary principles of science or a 
man who will make you as rich as Croesus. You will very 
likely get into the House of Commons. . You will have to 



Scientific Tendency in Education 691 

take your share in making laws which may prove a blessing 
or a curse to millions of men. But you shall not hear one 
word respecting the political organization of your country ; 
the meaning of the controversy between free traders and pro- 
tectionists shall never have been mentioned to you ; you shall 
not so much as know that there are such things as economi- 
cal laws. The mental power which will be of most impor- 
tance in your daily life will be the power of seeing things as 
they are without regard to authority ; and of drawing accurate 
general conclusions from particular facts. But at school and 
at college you shall know of no source of truth but authority ; 
nor exercise your reasoning faculty upon anything but deduc- 
tion from that which is laid down by authority. You will 
have to weary your soul with work, and many a time eat your 
bread in sorrow and in bitterness, and you shall not have 
learned to take refuge in the great source of pleasure without 
alloy, the serene resting place for worn human nature, — the 
world of art.' Said I not rightly that we are a wonderful peo- 
ple } I am quite prepared to allow that education entirely 
devoted to these omitted subjects might not be completely 
liberal education. But is an education which ignores them 
all a liberal education t Nay, is it too much to say that the 
education which should embrace these subjects and no others 
would be a real education, though an incomplete one ; while 
an education which omits them is really not an education 
at all, but a more or less useful course, of intellectual 
gymnastics .'' " 



Huxley did not admit that the prevailing education was 
literary, for the study of grammar and language structure is 
scientific rather than literary. The schoolboy never reached 
the literary stage, and the training he got in the languages 
was very poor science as to its method, and in content of no 
value at all. The argument that universal and practical edu- 
cation would be of no avail since neither poverty, crime, nor 
misery had decreased with education, he answers by say- 
ing that this fact simply shows the uselessness of the old 
education, without revealing any theory about a truer educa- 
tional procedure. 



692 History of Ediication 

The purpose and conception of the process of education is 
stated in Huxley's notable description of the product of a 
liberal education. 

" That man, I think, has had a liberal education who has 
been so trained in youth that his body is the ready servant of 
his will, and does with ease and pleasure all the work that, as 
a mechanism, it is capable of ; whose intellect is a clear, cold, 
logic engine, with all its parts of equal strength, and in smooth 
working order ; ready, like a steam engine, to be turned to 
any kind of work, and spin the gossamers as well as forge the 
anchors of the mind ; whose mind is stored with a knowledge 
of the great and fundamental truths of nature, and of the 
laws of her operations ; one who, no stunted ascetic, is full of 
life and fire, but whose passions are trained to come to heel 
by a vigorous will, the servant of a tender conscience ; who 
has learned to love all beauty, whether of nature or of art, to 
hate all vileness and to respect others as himself. Such an 
one, and no other, I conceive has had a liberal education ; for 
he is, as completely as a man can be, in harmony with nature." 

SCIENCE IN THE CURRICULUM. In the Universities 

and Colleges. — The scientific study of nature was fostered in 
the earlier centuries of the modern era more by academies of 
science, beginning with that of Naples in 1560, than by the 
universities. While the scientific spirit was embodied in the 
University of Halle from its foundations, it was in these acad- 
emies and ;r(7/-schools that science received its chief culti- 
vation. In France the beginnings of higher instruction in 
science of a modern type were also outside of the universities. 
The Republic, in 1794, founded the normal school at Paris, 
where the most famous French scientists, including Laplace 
and Lagrange, gave instruction. In England the study of 
mathematical and physical sciences in the universities had 
been given an impetus by Newton, but there was no study 
of the biological science and no use of scientific method by 
students until much later. Modern scientific teaching in the 
universities, together with the experimental use of laboratories 



Scte^itijic Tendency in Educatio7i 693 

by students, may be said to have been begun about 1825 by 
Liebig at Giessen. In England scientific instruction developed 
altogether independently of the universities ; the College of 
Chemistry was founded in 1845, and the School of Mines was 
established by the government in 185 1. The Department of 
Science and Art, founded in 1853, also fostered advanced 
scientific study. The royal schools above mentioned, together 
with the normal training classes started in 1868, were gradu- 
ally brought together, and in 1890 were reorganized under 
the title of the Royal College of Science. Engineering 
schools and science schools in connection with the army and 
navy had already been instituted shortly after the middle of 
the century. 

In i860 the Faculty of Science was created in the Univer- 
sity of London, and the degrees of doctor and bachelor of 
science were first given. It was not until 1869 that the 
courses in science were established in any number in Oxford 
and Cambridge. While there has been rapid development 
recently, and while a large Carnegie fund has been devoted to 
fostering science in the Scottisn universities, it is generally 
recognized that Great Britain is almost a century behind the 
continent in the teaching of science. 

In the United States. — Science appeared in the curriculum 
of American colleges in the earhest days. Astronomy ap- 
peared in President Dunster's program of studies at Harvard 
in 1642; and in the other colleges in the order of their ap- 
pearance. In this same program it was specified that the 
seniors shall study "the nature of plants" for one hour on 
Saturday afternoons during the summer months. But no 
further mention of botany appears until the middle of the 
eighteenth century. Physics, or natural philosophy, is the sec- 
ond science in the order of appearance. It was given place 
at Harvard in 1690, and may have appeared earlier. Very 
early in the eighteenth century it appeared at Yale also. By 
the middle of the eighteenth century geography and the use 



694 History of Education 

of globes, probably incorporated under astronomy in the 
earlier colleges, appeared at Princeton (founded 1746) along 
with astronomy and physics. " Geographical grammar," 
along with natural philosophy and astronomy, constituted the 
sciences in the Harvard curriculum of 1 742-1 743. 

It was with the founding of two new institutions. King's 
College, now Columbia, in 1754, and the University of 
Pennsylvania, in 1755 (or 175 1 as an academy), that an 
entirely new tendency was begun. Neither of these colleges 
was under denominational control; and though, as a matter 
of course, the classical languages yet occupied the central 
place, divinity as an important study had disappeared from 
the curriculum. In the advertisement for King's College in 
a New York paper. May i, 1754, the following is the fifth 
section : — 

" And, lastly, a. serious, virtnoits, and industrious Course of 
Life being first provided for, it is further the Design of this 
College, to instruct and perfect the Youth in the Learned 
Languages, and in the Arts of reasoning exactly and writing 
correctly, and jr/^«/('/;/^ eloquently ; and in the Arts of num- 
bering 2cs\^ measuring ; of Surveying -AXidi Navigation, of Geog- 
rapJiy and History, of Husbandry, Commerce, and Government, 
and in the knowledge of all Nature, in the Heavens above us, 
and in the Air, Water, and Earth around us, and in the various 
kinds of Meteois, Stones, Mines, and Minerals, Plants, and 
Animals, and of everything useful for the Comfort, the Con- 
venience, and Elegance of Life, in the chief Manu.factures 
relating to any of these things, and finally, to lead them from 
the Study of Nature to the Knowledge of themselves, and of 
the God of Nature, and their Duty to him, themselves and 
one another, and every Thing that can contribute to their true 
Happiness, both here and hereafter." 

This scheme was actually incorporated into a curriculum 
by President Johnson, but with a change of presidents in 
1762 a more restricted curriculum prevailed and no marked 
advance was made until after the Revolution. In the cur- 



Scientific Tendency in- Education 695 

ricLilum of 1756 in the University of Pennsylvania, natural 
philosophy, a great range of applied mathematics, astronomy, 
natural history, chemistry, and agriculture appeared. Chemis- 
try also appeared at Harvard in 1760. In 1779, with the 
inauguration of James Madison as President of William and 
Mary, but chiefly owing to the influence of Thomas Jefferson, 
the general plan of King's and of Pennsylvania was carried 
to that College ; chemistry and medicine were introduced, 
the chair of divinity was abolished, and a curriculum com- 
posed largely of the natural, political, and social sciences was 
substituted for the narrow Oxford curriculum previously in 
vogue. At Yale, under President Stiles, after the Revolution, 
chemistry, botany, and zoology were introduced, Hebrew was 
made elective and French offered as a substitute. In 1787 
a course in natural history was offered " to those that 
obtained permission of parents or of guardians." 

The opening of courses in medicine in these colleges, first 
at King's in 1767, at Harvard in 1782, and at Pennsylvania 
in 1 79 1, was one other important aspect of the development 
of the study of the sciences. In 1792 a faculty of physic, 
consisting of a dean and seven professors, complementary to 
the faculty of languages, was established at Columbia. * 

In 1825, at Harvard, mechanics and optics appeared as 
separate courses ; mineralogy and geology were added to 
astronomy, chemistry, and natural history ; electricity and 
magnetism first appeared as separate subjects ; the philoso- 
phy of natural history was announced as a separate course 
and special lectures in physiology were given. Mineralogy, 
geology, and botany appeared at Princeton in 1830, as had 
chemistry in 1803 and natural history still earlier. To natural 
philosophy, chemistry, astronomy, and geography, the subjects 
of mineralogy and geology were added at Yale in 1824. 
Electricity appeared as a separate course in the University 
of Pennsylvania in 181 1. 

So far as mentioned, these scientific subjects were all incor- 



696 History of Education 

porated as required studies, and the disciplinary conception 
of education prevailed and was distinctly enunciated by 
various faculties. The conception of interest, or of the 
capacities and desires of the individual, began to be recog- 
nized before the middle of the nineteenth century. The Uni- 
versity of Virginia was estabhshed in 1825 upon the basis of 
the complete freedom of choice by the student. Advocacy 
of the system at Harvard began in 1825, and considerable free- 
dom was allowed students from about 1845. Not until 1869 was 
the system of complete freedom in election of studies estab- 
lished, with the administration of President Eliot. Earlier 
than this Presidents Wayland of Brown and Nott of Union 
had stood for this broader conception of the college course. 
With the elective system came the general ascendency of the 
scientific subjects. The establishment of Cornell University, 
in 1867, upon a basis of complete freedom with a strong bias in 
favor of the scientific and technical subjects, completed this 
phase of the movement toward the general introduction of 
the sciences into higher education. Meanwhile, in Harvard 
(1847) aiicl Yale (i860), special schools of science had been 
established. 

• The earliest scientific school of higher grade was the 
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, founded in 1824 at Troy, 
New York. The advanced character of the scientific work 
can be judged from this direction to the board of trustees : 
" These [the students] are not to be taught by seeing experi- 
ments and hearing lectures according to the usual method. 
But they are to lecture and experiment by turn, under the 
immediate direction of a professor or competent assistant. 
Thus by a term of labor, like apprentices to a trade, they are 
to become operative chemists." The Morrill land grant of 
1862, by which Congress appropriated thirteen million acres 
of land for maintenance in each state of a college devoted 
chiefly to those branches of learning related to agriculture 
and mechanic arts, though "without excluding other scientific 



Scientific Tendency in Education 697 

and classical studies," developed an entirely new type of 
scientific school. These are the schools of applied science 
found either in connection with state universities or as inde- 
pendent institutions in almost every state in the Union. 

Science in the Secondary Schools. — In Germany the intro- 
duction of science through the sense-realistic movement has 
been noted. Through the influence of the philanthropinists 
and of the materiaHstic thought on the one hand, and 
the new humanistic movement on the other, the rigid 
classical conception of education was modified, and in 18 16 
science was introduced into the Prussian gymnasium, and at 
a somewhat later period into those of the Southern German 
states. Though but two hours per week were allotted to 
physics and natural history, — and even less in the southern 
or Catholic regions, — science retained its hold upon the 
classical schools, despite the reactionary movement that took 
place between the Congress of Vienna and 1848. In 1855 
two types of real-^ohoois were recognized : one with the full 
nine-year course with Latin yet 1 epresented in every year ; 
and the real-^z\\oo\ of the second g^'ade, with its curriculum 
determined largely by local authorities. In 1882 these be- 
came the Realgyinnasium, the Oberrealsclmle of nine years' 
course without Latin, and the real-schnle of a less number 
of years. In these schools twice as much time is given to 
natural history, physics, chemistry, and mineralogy as in the 
gymnasien (thirty-six week-hours for the nine years in the 
real-schulen), and a much greater emphasis put upon mathe- 
matics, geography, and drawing. AlHed to the real-scJiitlen — 
scientific or English high schools we would call them — are the 
technical schools, which have achieved such practical success 
and such perfection of method and organization during the 
present generation. These began with the technical schools 
of Nuremberg, organized in 1823. While technical subjects 
are most emphasized, the scientific and mathematical subjects 
as the bases for the work in the applied sciences are made 



698 History of Education 

prominent. Such schools have assumed prominence and 
numbers since the middle of the century (p. 742). 

In England, as in our own country, the introduction of 
scientific subjects into the secondary curriculum is identical 
with the academy movement. The importance of the acade- 
mies declined during the eighteenth century, and in the 
numerous " public schools " and those not on foundations 
but of purely private character little was done to continue 
any interest in the study of the sciences. With the second 
quarter of the nineteenth century the popular controversy 
between the sciences and the classics in secondary education 
began and was continued with enthusiasm for many years. 
Headed by George Combe, this controversy first concerned 
the schools of Edinburgh and Glasgow and, about 1835, led to 
the establishment of secondary schools that laid much stress 
upon the sciences in opposition to the flourishing classical 
high schools and institutes. In 1849 other "secular schools," 
as the type now came to be called, were founded and a society 
fostering such schools was established. The controversy 
initiated (p. 679) did much to hasten the first steps toward 
the reform of schools during the decades of the sixties and 
seventies. Up to this time no change had been made in the 
attitude of the " public schools " toward the sciences. 

In 1856, in answer to the expressed opinion of the Univer- 
sity Commissions for Winchester, " that good elementary 
instruction in physical science is essential in the case of many 
boys, desirable in all cases, and perfectly compatible with 
a first-rate classical education," that college instituted a 
course "of ten or twelve lectures — delivered once a year." 
After ten years this was extended into a series of lectures 
continuing throughout the year with appropriate examina- 
tions. After the public school acts of ParHament in 1868, 
which revealed that there was an almost total absence of study 
of the sciences in the five hundred and seventy-two endowed 
secondary schools, a " modern side " came to be organized in 



Scientific Tendency i7i Education 699 

all of the more prominent of these schools, though tardily in 
some and with minor attention and unconcealed disparage- 
ment in all. Natural history and physics were included 
along with modern languages and history in this modern side. 
While this condition has much improved, the serious attention 
given to instruction in the sciences is fostered by the De- 
partment for Science and Art (in 1898 combined with the 
Department of Education). This department was created in 
1853, though appropriations had been made by Parliament 
from 1836. Little of importance was done until after 1859. 
Schools or classes in which instruction is afforded in physics, 
zoology, chemistry, geology, mineralogy, botany, as well as 
in a variety of practical subjects, are now granted a sub- 
vention. In this manner more than ten thousand classes 
are assisted at the present time. In 1901 there were seventy- 
eight independent " science schools " of secondary rank. 

In America the academies were the home of instruction in 
the sciences from the first (p. 500). Astronomy and " natural 
philosophy " were naturally the ones most emphasized, since 
they were those most systematically formulated during the 
eighteenth century. Geography was almost universally 
taught in these schools and chemistry frequently. After the 
publication of the first American geography by Morse in 
1784, this study acquired a firmer hold than ever upon the 
academies. A list of text-books published in the United 
States in 1804 includes six geographies as the only scientific 
text-book besides those of applied mathematics, such as sur- 
veying and navigation. By 1832 there were 39 geographies, 
1 1 astronomies, 6 botanies, 5 chemistries, 6 natural philoso- 
phies. Most of these were designed for use in academies. 
It is needless to add that all the sciences were studied from 
books, though resort was frequently made for illustration to 
experimentation with apparatus. The first unmistakable 
evidence that any of these subjects composed a vital part 
of the secondary curriculum was the inclusion of geography 



700 History of Education 

among the college entrance requirements by Harvard in i8o/. 
No other science followed as an entrance requirement until 
physical geography was added in 1870, and physics two 
years later. 

With the development of the early high schools, the same 
emphasis upon the sciences was continued. The earliest high 
school, that of Boston, founded in 1821, included geography 
in the first year ; geometry, trigonometry, navigation, and sur- 
veying, in the second ; and natural philosophy and astron- 
omy in the third. All of the earlier schools of this type, 
whether called free academies, city colleges, English clas- 
sical schools, union schools, or high schools, continued the 
same attitude toward the sciences. After 1870 the character 
of these schools was vastly improved, their number increased, 
and the work in science was expanded to include physics, chem- 
istry, botany, and zoology, in well-organized courses. Until 
quite recently, however, the policy of giving numerous general 
courses of superficial character prevailed over that of a more 
substantial mastery by more thorough experimental methods 
of a comparatively few subjects. While the curriculum of 
the high school gives an important place to the sciences, the 
institution itself was an outgrowth of the sociological tendency 
to be noted later. 

Science in the Elementary School. — In Germany the influ- 
ence of the naturahstic tendency under Basedow has been 
mentioned. It was the Pestalozzian movement, introduced 
into Prussia in 18 10, and into other German states later, that 
made such elementary science studies general. Geometry was 
incorporated into the curriculum of the upper grades and 
drawing throughout the course. Geography, taught by induc- 
tive method and introducing much general information of 
scientific character, was included throughout. The study of 
science, including elementary physics, physiology, and natural 
history that dealt with the phenomena of botany and zoology 
in an elementary scientific way, was introduced into the middle 



Scientific Tendency in Education 701 

and upper grades. In most of the grades these sciences 
were allowed two hours a week, though in some of the upper 
grades four. This remains the situation to the present time. 
For almost a century, then, science has been recognized as 
one of the subjects of the elementary schools throughout 
almost the whole of the German-speaking countries. 

/;/ England. — The condition of elementary schools was so 
chaotic until the establishment of board, or public, schools in 
1870, that it is difficult to speak of general conditions. The 
attitude of the Department of Science and Art in fostering 
science study, especially in giving encouragement to draw- 
ing and recently to manual training, has been mentioned. 
The establishment of numerous organized science schools 
since 1872 by the same department has also been referred to. 
Until 1900 the " three R's " were the only required studies in 
the primary schools. The teaching of other subjects was con- 
trolled by the governmental grants given for results in various 
subjects. The most popular of these supplementary subjects 
were geography and elementary science. These have now 
been included in the compulsor)- course. 

In the United States. — The question concerning the proper 
subjects for the elementary curriculum hardly existed before 
the middle of the nineteenth century. The " three R's — read- 
ing, writing, and arithmetic," with spelling and grammar, were 
without any rivals whatever. In fact, the average school 
included only reading, spelling, and English grammar, while 
those of a superior sort added writing, arithmetic, geography, 
and history.^ 

The first subject of scientific character that made any 
headway in its claims for representation was geography. By 
1832, thirty-nine geographies and atlases, many of them for 
elementary school work, had been published in the United 
States. The second subject of scientific nature to find 
entrance into the elementary curriculum was physiology. 

^ Hinsdale, Horace Mann and the Common School Revival, Ch- L 



702 History of Education 

This was especially the case in the New England region, and 
was due to the advocacy of Horace Mann, who, from 1837, 
continued his propaganda in favor of this subject. The first 
English text-book on physiology of elementary character 
appeared in 1837; its introduction into elementary schools 
followed slowly, and in 1850 the state legislature of Massa- 
chusetts made compulsory the teaching of the subject in the 
elementary schools. Object teaching, and along with this 
the study of simple phenomena of nature, was introduced 
through the Pestalozzian movement (pp. 620-621). Nature 
study has been a more recent outgrowth of this and other 
influences. 

INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE ON EDUCATIONAL METHOD. 

— The detailed evidence containing these influences is sug- 
gested in the previous section on science in the curriculum 
and in the chapter on the psychological tendency. The appli- 
cation of psychological method is the application of science 
to education. Yet one or two general considerations need to 
be suggested to assist the student in constructing this resume. 

Scientific method has been worked out objectively by a 
long line of investigators, from Copernicus, Galileo, and 
Kepler, through Newton to the present time. Since the time 
of these early scientists it has been applied, widely and thor- 
oughly, to every field of investigation and every phase of 
experience. Formulated first on the subjective side by 
Descartes and on the objective side by Bacon, every investi- 
gator has but made more evident its philosophical as well 
as its positive formulation. 

The earlier application of this method to education in the 
Baconian period has been discussed. Its more general appli- 
cation, though in somewhat empirical form and in a wholly 
tentative manner in the Pestalozzian movement, has also been 
mentioned. The development of the scientific method in its 
application to education during recent times can be traced 



Scientific Teizdency in Ediication 703 

along two lines. The first of these is in the formulation of 
specific methods of instruction more in accord with the prin- 
ciples of psychology than are the traditional ones of the past. 
The second of these is through the improvement in form, 
content, and arrangement of material presented in text- 
books. 

Probably little has been added in general principles, or at 
least such traditions are slowly made. The great task, after 
the scientific attitude has been accepted by teachers, is to 
translate principles into precepts and precepts into practice. 
The more general professional training is making such prog- 
ress possible ; the constant revision and improvement in text- 
books is furnishing the means. The result is a constantly 
improving standard of efficiency and thoroughness in teach- 
ing. That with this improvement in method there is often 
much that savors of the chicanery of the mountebank, or 
more often of the unbalanced enthusiasm of the untrained 
practitioner, is evidenced by the many fads and fashions to 
which the educational world is subject. Beneath it all one 
has but to study the advance made in the teaching of any one 
particular subject to be convinced that great progress is be- 
ing made in the application of scientific method to education. 
Each part of education — elementar}^, secondary, higher — 
has its own history in this respect, as, indeed, has each sub- 
ject. This advance has been sketched for subject-matter. To 
follow this for any particular subject, by means of text-books 
and schoolroom methods, will be a most profitable task for 
the student, but one that cannot be undertaken here. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Development of the Natural Sciences, 

Beckman, History of hiventions. 

Buckley, A Short History of Natural Science. (New York, 1888.) 

Brewster, Ma?-tyrs of Science. 

Encyclopaedia Britannlca, articles : Astronomy, Botany, Physics, etc 



704 History of Education 

Smith, History of Science in the Nineteenth Century. (New York, 

1900-1901.) 
Smith, History 0/ Science. 4 vols. (New York, 1904.) 
Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences. (London, 1837.) 

Theory of Education. 

Clifford, Lectures and Essays. (London, 1879.) 
Combe, Education. (Edited by Jolby.) (London, 1879.) 
Eliot, Edticational Reform. (New York, 1898.) 
Huxley, Science and Education. (New York, 1894.) 
Jevons, The Principles of Science. (London, iSjj.) 
Mill, John Stuart, Inaugural Address. (London, 1867.) 
Pearson, Grammar of Science, Chs. I and III. 
Spencer, Education. (New York, i860.) 

You mans, Cidture demanded by Modern Life. Articles by Youmans, 
Tyndall, Huxley, Whewell, Spencer, etc. (New York, 1887.) 

Sciences in the Schools. 

Popular Science Monthly. Various articles ; see index. 

Boone, History of Education in the United States. (New York, 1889.) 

Combe, Education, pp. 23-252. 

Dexter, History of Education in the United States. (New York, 1904.) 

Lloyd and Bigelow, The Teaching of Biology. (New York, 1904.) 

In general, the literature on this chapter is to be found in periodical 
publications, to which access may be had through Poole's htdex. 

TOPICS FOR FURTHER INVESTIGATION 

1. Give an outline of the development of any one modern science and 
trace its connection with education : {a) To what extent was it developed 
through the work of educational institutions? (f) When was the subject 
introduced into school text-books (readers, etc.) ? {c) When and in what 
type of institutions was it introduced as a subject of study ? (rf) What 
influence, if it can be ti'aced, did it exert on the general character of the 
intellectual life and the general conception of education? 

2. What were the views held by any one of the prominent natural 
scientists that wrote upon the subject of education, — Franklin, Priestly, 
Agassiz, etc., — and to what extent were these views determined by their 
scientific ideas? 

3. To what extent was the development of the natural sciences an 
outgrowth of the work of educational institutions? 



Scientific Tendency in Edncatio7i 705 

4. To what extent can this be traced in any one institution; eg. 
University of Halle, University of Cambridge, University of Pennsylvania? 

5. Trace the introduction of scientific material into the elementary 
schools through old text-books or through the program of studies of 
schools in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century. 

6. Trace the growth of scientific academies and their influence upon 
education. 

7. Through the files of old educational publications trace the develop- 
ment of the influence of the natural sciences on school work and on edu- 
cational thought. 

8. To what extent is Spencer's argument concerning the value to be 
derived from the method of scientific study valid? 

9. Compare Huxley's conception of culture with that of Matthew 
Arnold in Essays in Criticism., etc. 

ID. What are the arguments for the general educational value of the 
natural sciences from the point of view of subject-matter? From the point 
of view of method ? 

11. What is the educational value of anyone particular science, e.g. 
physics, chemistry, botany, etc. ? 

12. Trace out in greater detail than is given in the text the introduction 
of the natural sciences into any particular grade of schools in any one 
country. 

13. What was the basis of the religious objection to the teaching of 
science in the schools, so potent during the first half of the nineteenth 
century? 



2Z 



CHAPTER XIII 
THE SOCIOLOGICAL TENDENCY IN EDUCATION 

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. — The sociological and 
psychological tendencies are not antagonistic, nor are the cor- 
responding conceptions of education mutually exclusive. The 
terms indicate a difference in emphasis and a difference in 
point of view alone. The psychologists look upon education 
as the process of the development of the individual ; they 
approach the subject through the study of psychical activi- 
ties ; they emphasize the importance of method — method as 
a process of development of the mind and method as school- 
room procedure. The sociologists look upon education as 
the process of perpetuating and developing society ; they 
approach the subject through a study of social structure, 
social activities, social needs ; they conceive the purpose of 
education to be the preparation of the individual for success- 
ful participation in the economic, political, and social activities 
of his fellows. 

Besides this difference in point of view and of emphasis, a 
few other characteristics may be noted. The extraordinary 
interest in appropriate subjects of study for every stage of 
education, from kindergarten to university, is an outgrowth 
of the sociological influence. This interest raises the ques- 
tion of educational values. Consequently, all traditional 
studies have been subjected to this test, with the result that 
some have been rejected and that all have been or are being 
reorganized. There have been in almost every subject of 
study many elisions and many additions. When there was 

706 



Sociological Tendency in Education 707 

raised the question, What knowledge is of most worth in 
order that the individual may take his place in society ? less 
and less importance was assigned to the purely linguistic and 
literary inheritance, and more and more to the knowledge of 
the phenomena of the natural environment, to the laws of 
the forces of nature, and to the knowledge of social institu- 
tions. Thus this tendency to minimize the old humanistic 
education and to accentuate the natural and social sciences 
accords with the scientific tendency. 

From the view that education is the process of the develop- 
ment of society, or the less definitely formulated view that 
education offers the best means for social betterment, there 
follows the corollary that all members of society must par- 
ticipate in this development. The growth of this sociological 
conception, in its general rather than in its scientific and 
technical aspect, is coincident with the development of uni- 
versal and free education. The growth of public school 
systems followed the acceptance of these ideas as a necessary 
consequence. 

SOCIOLOGICAL ASPECT OF THE WRITINGS OF 
PESTALOZZI, HERBART, AND FROEBEL. — While the 

aominant emphasis given by these men in their writings 
was upon the method of instruction and while their imme- 
diate followers were active almost exclusively in the im- 
provement in the process and spirit of educational effort, 
nevertheless, in their theory the sociological aspect is very 
prominent. 

In all of his earlier work, before the days of Yverdun. or at 
least before those at Burgdorf, the great object of search with 
Pestalozzi was a method of improving the welfare of the 
neglected, degraded, or orphaned poor. The philanthropic 
motive was uppermost in all of these earlier experiences. 
But social wrongs were to be righted by teaching children to 
be industrious. Through teaching them the simplest ele- 



7o8 Histoiy of Education 

ments of knowledge, and this chiefly in connection with handi 
crafts, they were to be started on the road to self-development 
and education. As soon as Pestalozzi turned from writing 
to actual teaching, his main interest came to be, and ever 
remained, in the method of carrying out his ideas, which was 
by " the simplification of instruction and the domestic educa- 
tion of the people." But in his theory, if not stressed most 
in his definitions of education, the social aspect is very evi- 
dent. Education is ever much broader than the school, and 
education thus becomes a social as well as individual process, 
one which is carried on by a variety of institutions. Educa- 
tion is the process as well as the means of bettering society ; 
education is ever to perform more for the individual than 
to give him rudiments of learning ; it is to assist him to 
be something for himself and to do something for others. 
It is because of this conception of education that Pestalozzi 
was always most interested in the education of the poor, the 
orphaned, the neglected ignorant. It is for the same reason 
that his methods of instruction received general recognition 
and application in connection with the training of defectives 
and deUnquents in every sort of reform school and asylum. 
And it was only because he realized that a practical method 
of attaining this end was the great essential, that Pestalozzi 
turned his attention exclusively to the betterment of the 
process of instruction. 

In the case of Herbart the social aspect of his influence 
appears most clearly in two points : first, in respect to aim, 
which is found in character, that is, in will functioning aright 
in society ; and second, in respect to subject-matter, which is 
to represent to the child, in an idealized form, the various 
aspects of life. With Herbart education was to be moral in 
its aim, not as in the old dogmatic religious conception, nor 
even as in the philanthropic, reformatory views of Pestalozzi ; 
education is moral in the broader sociological sense, since 
education has nothing else as its aim but the formation of the 



Sociological Tendency in Education 709 

moral nature. The whole problem of education is to make 
instruction educative in this sense. Character is given a much 
broader analysis than formerly it had received, at least in 
educational thought. Inner freedom, the finding of external 
expression in efficiency, benevolence, justice, and equity, 
represent in a new form the well-being and well-doing of 
Aristotle, and unite the individual and the social in terms of 
educational aims. The permanent educational problem is how 
to realize formulated and accepted aims, and to this Herbart 
devoted his chief attention. With his followers, it is this 
emphasis upon method that received almost exclusive atten- 
tion. It is probable that the Herbartian influence of the 
future, in our own country at least, will concern itself more 
with the broader sociological implications of the theory of the 
master than with this more restricted interpretation. In 
respect to the subject-matter of instruction, the Herbartian 
pedagogy contains another important sociological bearing, in 
that the curriculum represents to the child the summary of 
life in the past rather than merely so much material for the 
whetting of wits. But as this view received further interpre- 
tation in the culture epoch theory, in which the curriculum 
represents the summary of past stages of culture rather than 
an idealization and amplification of one's own, its sociological 
import is subordinated to its psychological significance. 

It is with Froebel that the full social significance of the 
subject-matter of instruction, as the presentation to the child of 
the simplified and idealized elements of his own life's environ- 
ment, is fully grasped (see pp. 659-660). As an epitome of 
life, the curriculum becomes the initial point of all instruction. 
This conception gives education a wholly new significance, and 
that a social one. It is the working out of this conception 
that forms the chief concern of education to-day. While it 
was the psychological aspect of the problem that first received 
chief recognition during the present generation, it is Froebel's 
pedagogical thought, as it is more fully appreciated, that has 



7IO History of Education 

come to have a new significance. The intimate practical 
connection between Froebel and the sociological tendency is 
indicated by the fact that for ten years the kindergartens 
were suppressed because of their supposed socialistic bear- 
ing. Though this was partly due to confusion of Froebel 
with a relative of his who held forbidden views, yet it was 
based as well upon the tendencies of the education given. 
And it is true to the present day, that no phase of school 
work has so closely approximated the idea of a society in 
microcosm as has the kindergarten. 

The fact that Kant in his philosophy of education sought 
a harmonization of the individual and social elements has 
been mentioned ; the same can be discovered in the works 
of Fichte, Rosenkranz, and others of this group. In fact, 
it was the latter who formulated the definition, " Education 
is the preparation for life in institutions," 

SOCIOLOGICAL ASPECT OF THE SCIENTIFIC TEND- 
ENCY. — In their emphasis on the importance of the sub- 
ject-matter and in their opposition to the current views of the 
orthodox disciplinarian educationists concerning the supreme 
importance of the process of acquisition of knowledge, the 
sociological and scientific tendencies coincide. However, 
the emphasis upon the supreme importance of subject-mat- 
ter is from somewhat different points of view. The approach 
of the scientists to this position is rather through the value of 
the natural sciences as they bear upon the welfare of the in- 
dividual ; that of the sociologists is through the importance 
of both natural and social sciences as they equip the indi- 
vidual for life in institutions and thus secure the welfare of 
society. It is to be further noted also that all the prominent 
advocates of scientific education beliex^e in a more extended 
educational use of the social as well as of the natural sci- 
ences. However the scientists and sociologists may differ in 
the solution of the problem of the curriculum, their point of 



Sociological Tendency in Education 711 

view is the same; namely, "What knowledge is of most 
worth ? " If, like Rousseau's " What is that to me ? " the 
formulation of this question by the scientists is in individ- 
ualistic terms, it is because it is more immediately connected 
in time and sympathy with this individualism of the eigh- 
teenth and nineteenth centuries than are the views of the 
sociological educators. 

In the case of Herbert Spencer, so intimate is this relation 
between the two tendencies in thought, that he may with jus- 
tification be taken as a representative of the sociological tend- 
enc}'. So intimate, on the other hand, is the relation between 
Spencer and the " naturalistic tendency " in education, of which 
he may be taken as the culmination, that the individualistic 
interpretation of the aims is apt to be ever uppermost. It is 
in his views concerning the curriculum and especially the social 
sciences, as well as in those concerning the dissemination of 
this new education among the masses instead of among the 
limited favored classes, that he reveals his sociological lean- 
ing. In respect to the first of these points, Spencer's dis- 
cussions relative to the true nature of history have exerted 
much influence in replacing the old dynastic and martial con- 
ception of history with the more modern, economic, and social 
conception. 

For the economic and utihtarian aspects of the study of the 
sciences, the sociological tendency has shown strong affinity ; 
for professional, technical, and commercial institutions have 
grown up quite as much in answer to sociological as to scien- 
tific demands. 

EDUCATIONAL IDEAS OF STATESMEN AND PUBLI- 
CISTS. — The social and political importance of education as 
well as the responsibility of the state for education was first 
recognized by the German peoples. The beginnings of state 
systems of education during the sixteenth century have been 
noted (Ch. VIII). However, the religious motive and concep- 



712 History of Education 

tion of education was yet dominant during this early period. It 
was not until the eighteenth century that the politico-economic, 
that is, the social, conception found full expression. The first 
monarchs to seize the idea that national prosperity and stabil- 
ity depended at bottom upon general education were Freder- 
ick the Great of Prussia (r. 1 740-1 786) and Maria Theresa 
of Austria (r. 1740- 1780). In his famous school laws of 1763 
the former recognized that it was the duty of officials to " strive 
for the true welfare of our country and of all classes of people " 
by " having a good foundation laid in the schools for a rational 
and Christian education of the young for the fear of God and 
other useful ends." While the early French republicans came 
to hold a similar conception of governmental responsibility for 
education and while they outlined a system, it remained for 
later generations actually to construct it. 

In our own country, though education was highly appre- 
ciated in the colonial days and though it found a notable ex- 
ponent in Franklin, it was either the religious conception, as 
with the early colonists, or the individualistic and utilitarian, 
as with Franklin's generation, that prevailed. With our early 
national leaders, a new conception developed. 

In his message to Congress in 1790, Washington wrote: 
" Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public 
happiness. In one in which the measures of government 
receive their impression so immediately as in ours, from 
the sense of the community, it is proportionally essential." 
Education, as the dissemination of knowledge, was thus the 
conception which Washington held. This undoubtedly is the 
approach to the subject most frequently made from the socio- 
logical point of view. Consequently the importance of educa- 
tion lay in the effect which the intelligence of the people 
would have upon legislation. The chief concern of Wash- 
ington lay then in the establishment of educational institutions 
that would serve as instruments of general enlightenment. 
In the same messasre he continues: "Whether this will be 



Sociological Tendency in Ediication 713 

best promoted by affording aid to seminaries of learning al- 
ready established, by the institution of a national university, 
or by any other expedients, will be well worthy a place in the 
deliberations of the Legislature." Later, he recommends the 
establishment of a national university and of a "national cen- 
tral agency charged with collecting and diffusing information 
and enabled by premiums and small pecuniary aids to en- 
courage and assist a spirit of discovery and improvenient." 
Thus he foreshadowed the work of the Bureau of Education, 
The Smithsonian Institute, The Carnegie Institution, and the 
Department of Agriculture ; the estabhshment of a national 
univeisity is yet unrealized. 

Of all our early statesmen, Thomas Jefferson possessed the 
clearest grasp of the national significance of education and 
did most to promote such activities. The principle funda- 
mental to this view we are here considering was announced 
in a letter to Washington in 1786. "It is an axiom in my 
mind that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of 
the people themselves, and that, too, of the people with a cer- 
tain degree of instruction. This ^'s the business of the state 
to effect and on a general plan." Education as the safeguard 
of democracy is the general principle ; the fundamental re- 
sponsibiHty of the state for the education of the people is the 
working basis that comes to be accepted in the course of the 
following half century. Mow the tremendous task that this 
idea presented in the days of Jefferson could be accomplished 
could not then be seen. The solution awaited the gradual 
acceptance of this principle by the, people and the growing 
ability and willingness to tax themselves generously for this 
end. With Jefferson this idea was bound up with the further 
one of local self-government. In other words, schools sup- 
ported by local taxation, and controlled by the local commu- 
nity as in New England, offered the solution of the new 
problem of democracy on a large scale. Late in life he 
wrote: "There are two subjects, indeed, which I claim a 



714 History of Education 

right to further as long as I breathe, the public education 
and the subdivision of counties into wards. I consider the 
continuance of republican government as absolutely hanging 
on these two hooks." 

James Madison (i 751-1836), the third President, was, next 
to' Jefferson, the most active of our earlier statesmen in edu- 
cational work. " A popular government without popular in- 
formation or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a 
farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both," he wrote. Consequently 
he held that " the best service that can be rendered to a 
country, next to giving it liberty, is in diffusing the mental 
improvement equally essential to the preservation and enjoy- 
ment of that blessing." 

With these two statesmen such views were not mere 
opinions, for they devoted quite as much attention to educa- 
tional activities and interests as to those of a political charac- 
ter. At the very beginning of this greatest of experiments 
in popular government, they realized most clearly that the 
success of it as well as the economic prosperity and social 
progress of the people depended upon their intelligence as 
that was secured and guaranteed by a most general scheme 
of education. No such system as would be adequate to the 
needs could be furnished by any other means than the state. 
As might be expected, their views were a half century or 
more in advance of the actual realization of these ideals. 

EDUCATION AS A PREPARATION FOR CITIZENSHIP.— 

The conception of education common to all of these statesmen 
and public leaders is that education is primarily a preparation 
for citizenship. It was necessary for several generations to 
intervene after the Rousseau influence, to bring about a gen- 
eral realization that this social conception was a very differ- 
ent one from that of the individuality-repressing education 
which Rousseau sought to overthrow. In fact, in our own 
country, it was near or after the middle of the nineteenth cen- 



Sociological Tendency i7i Education 715 

tury before this social conception of education replaced with 
the masses of the people the prevailing individualistic one. 
This individualism, however, was not the individualism of 
Rousseau and of the early psychologists, founded on the 
conception of education derived from a consideration of the 
child's mind ; it was an individualism based upon economic, 
political, and social considerations. The prevailing view 
among those giving no technical consideration to the problem 
was that the function of democratic government was to give to 
every individual freedom of opportunity, — a free field and 
no favors, — and that education was ±0 equip the individual 
in the best and briefest way for this harsh competitive 
struggle. With these premises only the most utilitarian view 
of education could prevail. In contrast with this, the sociolog- 
ical conception of education has received common acceptance 
among the people through the idea that education is a prepa- 
ration for citizenship. In the old view, the function of educa- 
tion was to develop the ability, improve the habits, form the 
character of the individual, so that he might prosper in his 
life's activities and conform to certain social standards of con- 
duct. The idea emphasized in the citizenship conception is 
that individual and social welfare, happiness, and righteousness 
depend more largely than ever before recognized upon the 
relations existing between persons and classes in institutional 
hfe. Therefore education has a new work, that of clarifying 
the basal principles of this relationship and of giving in- 
formation concerning the very complex relations in society, 
and a new aim, found in social motive. The new work de- 
mands a readjustment of emphasis upon subjects of instruc- 
tion, with greater attention to historic, economic, and hterary 
subjects. The new aim requires a greater attention to the 
formation of character, social habits, patriotic and altruistic 
motives. The first adds new emphasis to the importance of 
the knowledge side of education ; the second, to the moral 
aim. Education thus becomes, though indirectly, the force 



7i6 History of Education 

modifying social institutions by bringing about a better adjust- 
ment of individuals to one another. Progress is the character- 
istic of modern life; ability to adjust one's self quickly and 
properly to new social conditions is the chief demand upon 
education. This necessitates a knowledge of these changing 
conditions and an ability and willingness to bring about the 
readjustment. These are usually summed up under the term 
"good citizenship." The popular literature, revealing this 
general sociological conception of education, will be found 
for the most part devoted to the exposition of education as 
a general preparation for citizenship or for life in institu- 
tions ; and the popular conception but expresses in concrete 
form that which is given more technical expression in scien- 
tific literature. 

PLACE OF EDUCATION IN SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY. — 

The subject of education occupies an important place in the 
sociological literature produced in the last few generations. 
Since the time of August Comte, who founded the science of 
sociology and coined the term, various interpretations of 
the place of education in social economy have been made. It 
will be impossible in a brief space to notice many of these ; 
a statement of four of the most important must suffice. 
Comte himself gave only incidental attention to education in 
his writings. Though his great interest was in the dynamic 
aspect of social life and his chief quest for a philosophy or 
explanation of social progress, he did not grasp the importance 
of education in this process. It remained for the leading 
exponent of his ideas in this country. Professor Lester F. Ward, 
to perform this service. In }x\& Dynamic Sociology, — which, 
though a much-neglected work, is, in fact, the most elaborate 
treatise on education published by an American, — this exposi- 
tion is given. The substance of the theory is as follows : — 

The fundamental social theses are derived from the psy- 
chology of the individual ; namely, that the feelings constitute 



Sociological Ttiidciicy in Editcatioii 717 

the basal factor in life, that the tendency to action or the 
motor responsiveness to stimuli is the fundamental character- 
istic, that from the evolutionary point of view feeling has been 
developed as a means of preserving life, and that the intellect 
was similarly developed as a means for securing ends that 
the will unguided could not secure. The emotional-volitional 
aspect of mind thus becomes primary ; the intellect is de- 
veloped as a guide to action. From this position, accept- 
able enough to modern psychological thought, sociological 
doctrines of a radical nature are developed. Feeling fur- 
nishes the motiye power, intellect the guiding power, to all 
action, first of the individual, then of society. Conduct indeed 
depends upon desires, but desires depend upon ideas, that is, 
opinion and feeling, and these in turn depend upon education. 
Consequently it is the highest duty of society to furnish to 
every individual member an adequate education. This educa- 
tion, however, should not be that furnished by individuals or 
societies interested in giving to the child educated a particular 
set of beliefs. " It should consist exclusively in furnishing 
the largest possible amount of the most important knowledge, 
letting the beliefs take care of themselves." Thus at one 
point the views of Froebel are approached, in another those 
of Herbart, and in this last, the emphasis upon the importance 
of knowledge, the views of the natural scientists, notably 
those of Spencer. 

Further, according to this view, progress depends upon 
intelligence. Intelligence is the product of two factors, the 
degree of intellectual power and the product of its action ; in 
other words, upon intellect and knowledge. The degree of 
inteUigence can be improved only indirectly, through observ- 
ance of the laws of heredity and the influence of environment 
or through the process of acquiring knowledge. The extent 
of knowledge can be increased directly ; hence from both 
points of view the function of education is to increase knowl- 
edge. The indirect means for the increase of intellectual 
power, that is, selection and rational change of environment, 
have been at work for generations, with the result that the 
amount of useful knowledge possessed by the average mind 
is far below its intellectual capacity. Thus the degree of 
inteUigence is correspondingly below what it might be, and 
the great educational need, from the social point of view, is 



yi8 History of Education 

the more thorough dissemination of the great body of valu- 
able knowledge already extant. So far as there is necessity 
for the origination of knowledge, individual interest will care 
for that, and it is easier and more rapid than any increase of 
intellectual power can be. 

Thus education becomes a most important social function. 
It should be controlled by the state and not by private parties. 
It should concern itself chiefly with the dissemination of 
knowledge, for upon this depends the general intelligence, 
and upon general intelligence, in turn, depends social progress 
and happiness. But the final relationship of education to 
society is not yet clearly revealed. The highest social process 
is that of " sociocracy," — the rational control and direction 
of society by itself to reach certain determined and valuable 
ends. In other words, the highest form of social control and 
direction is " politics," though politics in a sense as yet hardly 
realized. Education, as the dissemination of knowledge 
which will serve as a basis for this highly rationalized social 
process, — that through which all others are obtained, — thus 
becomes the most immediate means to that end. This scien- 
tific and abstract thought comes to essentially the same 
position formulated by the common thought in terms of 
"preparation for citizenship." In formal terms education is 
defined "as a system' for extending to all members of society 
such of the extant knowledge of the world as may be deemed 
most important." 

A second of these general sociological views considers 
education as a means of social control. This is but another 
interpretation from a different point of view of Comte's 
philosophy. As society in the past has relied chiefly upon 
the government with its direct means of control through 
force, and the Church with its indirect means of control 
through beliefs, ideas, ceremonies, rewards, and punishments 
of immaterial character, so now it comes to depend more and 
more upon the indirect means of control exercised upon the 
coming generation through the school. This indirect means 
is far more economical than the direct means, since it depends 
so largely upon mere suggestion exercised by teachers rather 



Sociological Tendency in Education 719 

than upon a force which rouses opposition. It is more eco- 
nomical than when exercised wholly by the Church, in that it 
is largely intellectual and rational, and thus, through the self- 
interest and rational enlightenment of the individual, prepares 
directly for activities valuable from the general social point of 
view. 

Not but what the moral motives should be just as emphat- 
ically emphasized ; they should be rather more emphasized 
than ever, but they should be moral motives of a different 
character. As education in the hands of the parent sought 
to control the child for the sake of his practical success in 
life ; and the education of the Church to control him for the 
sake of the organization and for his own eternal salvation ; 
so the education of the state seeks to control the child for the 
sake of the welfare of society which includes the individual 
and his fellows as well. Thus as a form of control, education 
is merely an instrument of society similar to law, to police 
force, to religion and the Church, to organized public opinion, 
and to various institutional customs and traditions. But as 
such it operates in a peculiar way, not directly by force, but 
indirectly through the suggestive power of ideas and through 
the impartation of knowledge; not immediately upon the 
adult, but through the medium of a coming generation. 

A third estimate of the function of education from the 
sociological point of view is a much more fundamental one. 
Suggested in this meaning by social philosophers from the 
time of the Greeks, it was first given modern statement by 
Francis Bacon. He emphasized the importance of the study 
of tradition, — the transmission from one generation to the 
next of the substance of the learning and culture of the past. 
From this point of view education, in modern sociological 
theory, becomes the " effort to preserve the continuity and 
to secure the growth of common tradition." ^ Since the 

1 Vincent, The Social Mind a7id Education, p. 91. Chapter IV of this work gives 
the brief presentatinn of this entire theor}', as summarized in the paragraph above. 



720 History of Education 

"social mind" or this common tradition or summary of 
human experience exists only in the mind of individuals, 
such continuity can be preserved and development secured 
only. " by preparing the young gradually to appropriate the 
collective tradition in general and by training a few minds to 
receive and elaborate its various highly speciahzed divisions." 
Without this inheritance of racial experience by participation 
in social institutions, the individual becomes an abstraction. 
There is no social mind, it is true, aside from the individual 
minds which collectively constitute it; but, on the other hand, 
there can be no individual mind save as it receives its content 
from this social one. Thus the negative of Rousseau's idea 
of a "natural" education is reached. This, however, is not 
a return to the view against which Rousseau revolted; but, by 
a completion of the circle of thought, it is a compromise of the 
two extreme views in a conception which rejects both the 
unchecked individualism of the one and the unlimited domi- 
nance of authority of the other. The individual is educated, 
or he develops, by incorporating within his own experience 
the summarized achievements of the race ; social stability is 
secured by this same process and social progress through 
the modification and slight increment which the individual 
may furnish to tradition. Thus it is not to a fixed, but to 
a constantly changing environment that the individual is 
adjusted. This is the fundamental characteristic of modern 
education. For it is because the thought and institutional as 
well as the natural environment is constantly changing that 
the individual, in being adjusted to it as perfectly as the adult 
generation can secure, must preserve and develop his own 
individuality. It is the pozver of adjustment to a changing 
environment, not the fixed adjustment in itself, that modern 
education seeks to secure for the individual as its highest 
product. 

Thus is suggested the fourth and highest aspect of the 
sociological interpretation of education. Education becomes 



Sociological Tendency in Edtication "jii 

the most advanced phase of evolutionary process, or at least 
its most advanced method. The most general aspect of the 
theory of evolution is that vast uninterrupted and eternal 
forces of development obtain throughout all nature, and that 
all phenomena, physical and mental, are subject to law. In 
the more specific sense organic evolution is that adaptation 
of organic life to its environment which is secured for the 
most part through the process of natural selection. Human 
evolution is such self-adaptation of the human race to its 
environment as results in development. With this stage of 
evolution the institutional aspect of environment is most 
important and social selection of greater functional signifi- 
cance than natural. However, so far as the race as a whole 
is concerned, such development has been largely unconscious. 
That is, since the social consciousness rather seeks to prevent 
change, social progress has resulted for the most part through 
the conscious effort of the individual to secure for himself 
some advantage which is not permitted or, at least, not con- 
sciously given by society. The highest form of social selec- 
tion is attained when society becomes conscious of the aim, — 
a given social status, — and of the process through which the 
desired results are to be secured. Since the group has now 
conceived definite ends and the definite method of procedure 
through which it shapes the character of its constituent 
members and thus affects its own well-being, the process is 
a self-conscious one on the part of the group as well as on 
the part of individuals. Though of chiefly a negative char- 
acter, legislation in general is such a method. The great 
positive method developed by modern society for effecting 
these purposes is public education. Education thus becomes 
for the social world what natural selection is for the sub- 
human world, — the chief factor in the process of evolution. ^ 

^ For further development of this thesis see in bibliography, under Ward 
Maclcenzie, Vincent, Howerth, and Davidson. 

3A 



72 2 History of Education 

PHILANTHROPIC-RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS FOR EDU- 
CATION. — ^The growth of the systems of public schools, now 
supported by all advanced nations, has been along two lines 
of development, or rather through two successive stages. 
The first of these was the stage in which schools were sup- 
plied chiefly by private voluntary enterprise, from motives of 
religious and philanthropic character. While leaving the 
management in private or in quasi-public control, the state 
yet came to contribute to these very generally. The second 
of these stages is that in which the political and economic 
bearing of education receives general recognition and states 
accept the responsibility for general education of all of the 
people as one of the functions of government. The impor- 
tance of this philanthropic stage varied with different coun- 
tries. The m.ore prominent of these philanthropic-religious 
school movements, as they entered as constituent elements into 
the formation of our own public school system, deserve notice. 

Philanthropic-Educational Movement originating among the 
German Peoples. — Mention has already been made of the 
various philanthropic institutions founded by Francke at 
Halle, beginning with 1694, that developed into training 
schools for teachers, educational institutions of a practical 
character for orphans, and finally into the r^-^Z-schools of the 
German states. The philanthropic movement under Basedow 
which, beginning with private institutions, led through the 
training of teachers and the production of a voluminous liter- 
ature to the introduction of a study of natural phenomena, of 
more agreeable methods, and of a new and better spirit into 
the schoolroom, has also been noticed. Similarly the Pesta- 
lozzian movement had its philanthropic aspect. But with the 
establishment of the school at Yverdun, the chief attention of 
Pestalozzi, under the influence of his assistants, was directed 
toward the improvement of methods. The philanthropic 
aspect of the work was carried on by Emanuel von Fellen- 
berg( 1 77 1- 1 844). 



Sociological Tendency in Education 723 

The Feilcnberg Movement. — At Hofwyl, near Rurgdorf, 
Fellenberg conducted most successfully, from 1806 to 1844, a 
school that was pronounced by so competent an authority 
as Dr. Barnard to have been the most influential school that 
ever existed. The pedagogical principles underlying the 
work of the school were similar to those of Pestalozzi, with 
whom Fellenberg had been previously associated in a school 
experiment. The sociological purpose of the Hofwyl school 
was twofold : first, to educate the youth of the peasant class 
in agricultural and technical pursuits, and in connection with 
these industries to give them the elements of an intellectual 
education ; second, to bring the upper class into closer sym- 
pathy and understanding with the peasant class by educating 
them together. Therefore, two schools were estabhshed on 
an estate of some six hundred acres ; the literary institute, 
which gave the ordinary classical education, and the practical 
institute, which gave the education of the peasant boys for 
more intelligent farmwork. Both groups of boys had school 
gardens, both were expected to work on the farm, one for 
training in future management, the other for future service. 
There was an agricultural school for scientific instruction, a 
printing press where the literature and music of the school 
were printed by the boys of the school, workshops where they 
made their clothing and agricultural and scientific instruments, 
and other similar institutions. In time there were estabhshed 
a school for girls and a normal school for teachers, where for 
a time all of the teachers of the adjacent city of Berne were 
trained. In almost every respect the schools seemed to be a 
parallel of those at Hampton, Tuskegee, and other places that 
are attempting a similar solution of social problems in the 
present. 

From 1825 to 1840 scores of these "manual labor insti- 
tutes " were established all over the United States. All, or 
very nearly all, the institutions of academic or collegiate rank 
that were estabhshed within these time limits, were founded 



724 History of Education 

upon this basis. Many of these, such as Oberhn, soon devel- 
oped into colleges. The majority of them were fostered by 
some religious denomination. While in these institutions 
philanthropic and rehgious motives were prominent, the peda- 
gogical principles of Fellenberg were minimized. In the 
American literature that grew out of this movement but two 
motives were emphasized: one, the opportunity afforded by 
these institutions for a higher education at a lessened expense; 
second, the better health and consequently more active intel- 
lectual life produced by the course of life followed. With the 
improvement of the economic conditions of the country and 
the development of more of the formalities of social life, to- 
ward the middle of the century, the manual labor feature was 
dropped from most of these institutions. This feature had 
served one purpose, however, — that of making these insti- 
tutions possible. The sociological aspect of the Pestalozzian 
movement that related to the development of educational in- 
stitutions for the deaf, dumb, blind, maimed, and orphans, and 
of educational-reformatory institutions for juvenile offenders 
and first offenders, can only be mentioned. 

The Monitorial Systems of Bell and Lancaster. — In 1797 
Dr. Andrew Bell introduced into England a system which 
he had employed in an orphan asylum, that of using the 
older boys for the instruction of the younger. By him, and 
especially by Joseph Lancaster (i 778-1 838), the system was 
developed until it became for England a somewhat inade- 
quate substitute for a national system of schools. Through 
the use of a few conduct monitors and a sufficient number of 
teaching monitors drawn from the more advanced students, 
and through a system of organization and of method, it was 
possible for one teacher to direct a large number of pupils. 
With Lancaster the ideal, which he himself realized before 
he was twenty years of age, was for one teacher to control 
a school of one thousand boys. Thus in the absence of any 
willingness on the part of the people adequately to support 



Sociological Tendency in Edticaiion 725 



schools, with the government opposed on principle to con- 
tributing for such purposes, and with the religious bodies 
wholly unable to cope with the needs of the times, the moni- 
torial system made possible some general attention to public 
education. The Bell system found little or no footing in 
America, since it was connected wholly with the Church of 
England schools. The great service which the Lancasterian 
system rendered in our own country was in accustoming the 
people to schools for the masses of the people, to contributing 




A Lancasterian Monitorial School, with Recitation Semicircles and 
Lesson Boards arranged around the Room. 

to their support as individuals, and in gradually educating the 
people to look upon education as a function of the state. In 
addition to this it introduced a better system of grading, since 
all Lancasterian schools were rigidly graded on the basis of 
arithmetic work, and also on the basis of spelling and reading. 
Hence it was possible to promote in the one subject without in 
the other. Moreover, it brought in a better arrangement and 
classification of material and a better organization and disci- 
pline of the school. The great defects of this system were 
that the work was most formal ; that most of the instruction 
was extremely superficial ; that the discipline was rigid and 



726 History of Education 

mechanical ; and that the information gained was the result 
of formal memory work. There was absolutely no concep- 
tion of the psychological aspect of the work and no intima- 
tion whatever of the newer, broader, and truer conception of 
education that was developing on the continent. 

In 1805 the Lancasterian method was introduced into New 
York City. Within a few years almost every city from Boston 
to Charleston, in the South, and Cincinnati, in the West, had 
its monitorial or Lancasterian schools. Lancaster himself 
came to this country and assisted in the New York, Brook- 
lyn, and Philadelphia schools. In the third decade of the 
century, the system was introduced in New York and Boston 
into a new type of schools, the newly founded high schools. 
For this and the two following decades the system was widely 
popular in the many academies throughout the country. As 
in the case of the Fellenberg system, with which it was often 
combined, the system disappeared in consequence of the 
arousing of public opinion on the subject of education, with 
the growing material prosperity of the people and their will- 
ingness to contribute more liberally to the cause of education. 

The Infant School Movement was of similar import. . Origi- 
nating with a French country cjire in 1769, these schools 
were soon introduced into Paris and became the progenitors 
of the maternal schools, so common in all French cities at 
present. In England the infant schools originated inde- 
pendently with Robert Owen about 1799 at New Lanark, 
Scotland, as a means of checking the evil effect of the factory 
system on children. The factories of England at that period 
employed a large number of children that were bound out to 
them by the poor commissioners, at five, six, and seven years 
of age for a period of nine years. As these children were 
employed from eleven to thirteen hours a day in the factory, 
and at the end of their apprenticeship were turned free into 
the ignorant mass of the city population, their educational 
condition can be imagined. The infant schools were con- 



\ 



^^Y 



\ 






T5 — rr— "'CT'rTi 






''^. 



^. 




Sociological Tendency in Education 727 

trived to meet this situation. In 18 18 the new idea was 
carried to London by James Buclianan, the teacher of Owen's 
school, and soon in the person of Samuel Wilderspin found an 
enterprising exponent who was at the same time a voluminous 
writer. In 1834 "The Home and Colonial Infant School 
Society " was formed for the multiplication of schools based 
upon Wilderspin's ideas. Almost ten years before this time 
the schools had appeared in New York, and were soon imi- 
tated in most of the other large cities of the country. Even 
where public schools were established no provision was made 
for children of the earliest years ; tihe monitorial schools in 
most places similarly restricted their clientele. In the early 
nineteenth century the public schools of Boston were for- 
bidden to receive children who could not read and write. 
The Infant School Societies found abundant work to do in 
most cities. In many places, as in New York City, they 
were the progenitors of the primary department of the public 
schools; and to the present day, the independent organization 
of the primary department and the sharp division drawn for 
it in the school building is but a survival of the distinct 
origins of the grammar and primary grades. 

Public School Societies in the United States. — All of these 
educational interests were promoted and by far the greater 
part of educational opportunity was furnished, by the organi- 
zation of citizens into quasi-public societies. The history of 
schools in one city will serve as a type. With the exception of 
Church schools, and a school for negroes founded in 1787 and 
supported by the African Free School Society, there were no 
free schools in New York City until 1805. During that year, 
under the leadership of De Witt Clinton, the mayor of the 
city, a free school society, later called the Public School 
Society, was organized. The aim of this institution was to 
offer educational opportunities gratis to the children of the 
poor who were not provided for by the existing Church 
schools. The Lancasterian method of organization and in- 



728 Histojy of Education 

struction was adopted. In 1827 an infant school society 
was formed for the support of schools for children from three 
to six. While the Wilderspin organization was followed, 
there was an attempt to adopt the Pestalozzian method. 
Within a few years these schools were incorporated into the 
Public School Society as primary departments. In addition 
to funds contributed by private parties and those raised by 
lotteries, the state, from 18 16, had contributed from the com- 
mon school fund to the work of this society, and the city had 
made annual appropriations. In 1842 a city school board 
was formed and public ^schools were established under its 
control. It was not until 1853 that the schools of the society 
were transferred to the control of the school board and a 
free public school system was really established. While the 
transition was somewhat more tardily accomplished in New 
York than in other communities, yet every American city, 
except a few of New England, passed through a similar 
development. Public school societies, not always bearing 
this exact title, existed in Philadelphia, Buffalo, Albany, and 
even as far west as Cincinnati. 

In Boston, where elementary schools had existed in con- 
nection with the Latin Grammar School since 1666, and 
probably from an even earlier date, and where such schools 
had long been free, primary schools were no part of the pub- 
lic school system. The reason for this is somewhat peculiar. 
The law required that the child could not be admitted into 
the grammar (or public vernacular) school until he could read 
and spell. While it also authorized the establishment of 
these primary schools, none had been formed. Such instruc- 
tion was gained through the Church schools, the numerous 
private schools, and through one other form of school fostered 
by societies, the Sunday-schools, established at first for secu- 
lar instruction. In 1817 it was found that while 2365 chil- 
dren attended the public grammar schools, there were 3767 
children attending private schools, 365 attending charity 



Sociological Tendency in Education 729 

schools, and 526 of primary school age not attending school 
at all. A primary school society was formed in the follow- 
ing year. While this movement was opposed by the town 
selectmen and the school committeemen, it was approved by 
the town and supported for the most part by town funds. 
These schools were incorporated with the other city schools 
in 1855. Thus in various ways private philanthropy came to 
the assistance of pubhc enterprise in the support of schools. 
With regard to common schools at least, the philanthropic- 
rehgious period was terminated by the middle of the nine- 
teenth century, yet it is to be remembered that kindergarten 
and manual training schools have found their way into the 
public schools within a generation, largely through the chan- 
nel of privately supported organizations. 

DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN STATE SYSTEMS OF 
EDUCATION. — In considering the somewhat tardy develop- 
ment of public, especially city school systems in our own 
country, it is to be borne in mind that few other municipal 
services were at that time developed. Water supply, street 
lighting, street cleaning, fire protection, even police protection, 
were yet matters of private enterprise. When the absence of 
all experience in any generous support of educational activi- 
ties by taxation is borne in mind, it is not to be wondered that 
the development of the idea of free public schools and of a 
willingness to support them by general taxation were of slow 
growth. In aristocratic states, such as those of the Teutonic 
peoples, where the foresight of the ruling classes rather than 
the general intelligence and generosity of the people deter- 
mined the situation, less opposition to the development of the 
modern attitude toward education would be found. But a 
more important factor than the aristocratic-social one was the 
ecclesiastical-political one. Previous to the later part of the 
eighteenth century, it was the religious motive that controlled 
in education. Consequently only where the Church and State 



730 History of Edtication 

were closely united and where the Church desired to carr}> 
out some general scheme of education, did the State attempt 
to develop and control systems of public schools. The 
regions where these conditions prevailed have been noticed 
previously (pp. 407, 435-437). 

Germany. — Thus it happened that state systems of schools 
first developed in Germany; that, as a result, the philanthropic 
phase of school development was less prominent there because 
less necessary and was wholly of a supplementary and reforma- 
tory nature ; and that there the politico-economic stage of 
school development was first reached and most thoroughly 
carried out. The politico-economic motive, while very defi- , 
nitely announced by Luther (pp. 411-414), came slowly into 
public acceptance. It was the religious motive that was upper- 
most and the Church that was speaking through the State. 
Philanthropic movements, supplementing this development 
and assisting toward the more complete recognition of the 
sociological conception of education, have been noted from 
time to time. 

The first clear recognition of the conception that education 
lies at the basis of the economic prosperity, the political 
power, and the social well-being of a people was, as men- 
tioned, by Frederick the Great and other German monarchs 
of the later eighteenth century. It was not until 1763, at 
the close of the Seven Years' War, that he could turn his 
great energies to the subject of education. In his General 
School Regulations'^ of that year, school attendance was made 
compulsory, adequate training and compensation for teachers 
were provided, proper text-books arranged for, methods im- 
proved, supervision secured, and religious toleration in edu- 
cation proclaimed. 

It was not until 1794 that the transition to the new basis 
was completed. In the school law of that year, which met 

1 See Barnard's German Teachers and Educators, p, 593, for translation of 
these regulations in full. 



Sociological Tendency in Education 731 

with prolonged opposition from the clergy and from large 
portions of the people, a variety of new principles were 
stated. All public schools and educational institutions were 
declared to be state institutions. All schools, whether private 
or not, were to be under the control and supervision of the 
state. All teachers of the gymnasien and higher schools were 
to be considered state officers and the appointment of such 
teachers belonged to the state. No person could be excluded 
from a public school on account of religious belief, nor could 
a child be compelled to remain for religious instruction con- 
trary to the faith in which he had been brought up. From 
1808 to 181 1, under Von Humboldt and Von Schuckmann, the 
spirit and conduct of the elementary schools were revolution- 
ized by the introduction of improved methods based upon 
those of Pestalozzi. 

General revision of the school laws of Prussia occurred in 
1825, 1854, 1872. The tendency of these revisions as well as of 
subsequent minor changes has been toward the more general 
support of schools by the central government, with corre- 
sponding diminution of support from local and private 
sources ; toward the complete abolition of tuition fees for the 
elementary schools ; toward the centralization of the admin- 
istration and supervision of schools at the expense of the rights 
of the local community ; toward an improvement of the 
teaching staff and of the processes of instruction; and toward 
the complete elimination of ecclesiastical influence. While 
local pastors are found in the great majority of local school 
boards, the sentiment of the school as represented by the 
teaching class is strongly in favor of the elimination of the one 
remaining form of ecclesiastical control. The point to which 
other countries must give so much attention — the administra- 
tion of an effective compulsory school law — has been on ac- 
count of long experience almost automatically operative in 
Germany for more than a century. 

France. — Agitation for public education in France began 



73 2 History of EdiLcation 

with the campaign in public opinion against the Jesuits and 
with their expulsion (1764). Yet at the opening of the 
Revolution more than half of the men and three-fourths of 
the women of France could not sign their names. The 
importance of the educational discussion in the literature and 
reports of the Revolution has previously been mentioned 
(p. 575). The early Revolutionary Assemblies received many 
reports on education ; the later Conventions passed many 
laws. But little in the way of execution was accomplished. 
In 1795 the National Normal School and numerous second- 
ary schools, The Central Colleges, were estabhshed. Condi- 
tions were so chaotic that little was accomplished and this 
Httle did not effect the one thing demanded by the Revolu- 
tionary sentiment, — universal, compulsory, free education. 
In 1806 was established the University of France, which 
included in itself, practically as a department of the national 
government, all secondary and higher education. Both 
Napoleon and the government of the Restoration neglected 
elementary education. This was left to religious societies 
and monitorial schools after the plan of Bell and Lancaster. 
Public elementary education dates from 1833. At that time 
Guizot, Minister of Public Instruction, proposed and carried 
into execution a law which established elementary schools of 
two grades, primary and grammar, in practically every com- 
mune. These offered tuition to the poor without expense; 
provided religious instruction and reserved to the government 
the right of appointing teachers and determined their salaries. 
Primary education was made free in 188 1 and compulsory in 
1882 ; the present organic law establishing the most perfect 
system of centralized and state-controlled schools now in exist- 
ence dates from 1886. Until very recently Church schools 
were as numerous and more influential than the non-sectarian 
state schools. Until 1882 religious instruction was given in 
all schools. All private schools are required to have the 
sanction of the state. Since 1901 all religious congregations 



Sociological Tendency in Education 733 

have been required to obtain authorization and legal recog- 
nition in order to carry on educational work. The supple- 
mentary legislation of 1903 has practically closed all religious 
schools. 

England. — In England, the land of institutional evolution 
rather than of revolution, this transition to the politico-eco- 
nomic stage has been longest delayed and is yet far from 
complete. The various philanthropic-religious school soci- 
eties have been enumerated in connection with the move- 
ments from which they sprang. As in many localities of the 
United States, the first public support of education came in 
the form of grants to these societies. Beginning in 1833, after 
a long controversy as to whether the government had any 
right at all to interfere in connection with education, the 
English government continued to grant annually an ever 
increasing amount to the schools maintained by the National 
Society and the British and Foreign School Societies. These 
grants were used chiefly for the erection of schoolhouses and 
upon condition of the right of government inspection. In 
practice none but clergymen were appointed inspectors ; 
moreover, schools were required by law to give instruction in 
religion. As a result of parliamentary grants, teachers' train- 
ing colleges were opened in connection with these societies 
in 1 84 1 and 1844. Grants for pupil teachers, for books, for 
school supplies, were added within a few years. In 1861 the 
system of distributing these grants according to the number 
of pupils that had satisfactorily passed the examinations given 
by government inspectors in specified subjects was adopted. 
This is the "payment by result" system, which produced a 
formalizing tendency in the work of the schools and has only 
recently been abandoned. By the act of 1870 were estab- 
lished the first elementary schools organized, supported, and 
supervised by the state. These are the "board schools," 
controlled by local boards and supported partially by local 
taxation, which must be at least equal to the government 



734 History of Education 

grants. Until 1903 no voluntary or Church school was per- 
mitted to participate in funds from local rates. By the law 
of 1870 compulsory attendance regulations might be adopted 
by district school boards ; but until there were schools, such 
laws would be anomalous. By the law of 1880 compulsory 
attendance under ten was provided for; by that of 1899 the 
age was raised to twelve, and by that of 1900 the local boards 
were permitted to raise the age limit to fourteen. Until 1903 
these two systems of state or " board schools" and Church or 
" voluntary schools " remained side by side. While the volun- 
tary schools were yet more than twice as numerous as the 
board schools, in the number of teachers the latter had outrun 
the former; the number of pupils in each class was about 
the same. There were 5878 board schools with 38,395 
teachers, to 14,275 voluntary schools with 29,283 teachers. 
The relationship of these two types of schools to each other 
and to the governmental grants remains the most prominent 
educational problem of England. 

The United States. Early Free Schools. — It appears that 
from the latter half of the seventeenth century some of the town 
schools of Massachusetts were free in the modern sense of the 
term in that they were supported wholly by public taxation. 
Many of the early New England schools received their sup- 
port from a variety of sources, such as the sale or rental of 
public lands, rental from fish weirs, from ferries, from be- 
quest and private gift, from subscription, from local rates, and 
in nearly all cases from tuition of students. Wherever in 
the colonies it was customary for the local or colonial govern- 
ment to assist schools by grants or by taxes, it was also 
customary for the schoolmaster to supplement this small 
allowance by tuition charges regulated for the most part by 
common custom. As the schools established by the towns 
required some previous training on the part of those •-entering 
them, usually the knowledge of. the alphabet or the ability 
to read, " dame schools " of a most rudimentary character 



Sociological Tendency in Education 735 

sprang up in great numbers. The government of the New 
England towns was a pure democracy, and the control of 
schools remained for a long time in the hands of the town 
meeting itself. Only gradually were powers delegated first 
to the selectmen and then, in the eighteenth century, to a school 
committee. Then the necessity for tuition fees from the pupil 
was replaced by a more generous assessment upon the town. 
Thus it happened that in Massachusetts by the middle of the 
eighteenth century, and in other New England commonwealths 
shortly afterward, elementary schools were for the most part 
free. These early systems of public or free schools were 
largely due to the religious devotion of the New England 
people and to the practical identity of Church and State. 
The Educational Revival of the Eai'ly Nineteenth Century. 

— With the decline of the religious fervor and of the una- 
nimity of religious belief in the later eighteenth century, 
interest in education declined also ; the Latin grammar 
schools disappeared (p. 395); private schools — the academies 

— took their place ; and the elementary schools became more 
minutely subdivided and. less generously supported. The 
establishment of schools upon a politico-economic basis was a 
growth of the nineteenth century. Although this transition 
went on during the entire half century, it was concentrated 
in the period from 1835 to 1850, to which has been given the 
name of its leading agitator, Horace Mann (i 796-1859). 
Since schools were very generally supported by local taxation 
in Massachusetts, the reforms striven for by Mann as secre- 
tary of the Massachusetts School Board (i 837-1 849) were the 
abolition of the small district schools in favor of the better- 
supported, better-taught, better-equipped and more centralized 
town schools, a better preparation for teachers, the establish- 
ment of normal training schools, a longer school term, school 
libraries, an enriched curriculum, improved methods of in- 
struction, and the building up of a spirit of educational 
enthusiasm among the people and of professional spirit 



736 History of Education 

among the teachers. The immediate result of the labors of 
this first great organizer of American educational forces was 
that during his secretaryship the appropriations for the com- 
mon schools were doubled, the wages of men teachers 
increased 62 per cent and those of women teachers 5 1 per 
cent ; the relative number of women teachers increased 54 
per cent ; the annual school term was increased by one 
month; the ratio of private to public school expenditure fell 
from 75 to 36 ; compensation for school supervision was 
made compulsory, and hence both compensation and super- 
vision increased and improved ; fifty new high schools were 
established ; the first normal schools in America were 
founded; school attendance increased; methods, discipline, and 
spirit of the schoolroom were changed vastly for the better. 
One great object which Mann sought for — -the abolition of 
the district school system — was not accomplished (1859) 
until after his retirement from olSce, and not permanently 
until 1882. 

This educational revival was not confined to Massachusetts ; 
there were many leaders as able and some, such as Henry 
Barnard, as prominent as Horace Mann. Chairs of education 
were established in several colleges. Though there had been 
one state superintendent of education before this time (in 
New York from 181 3), many states now established such an 
office. A movement toward the concentration of administra- 
tion of school affairs began. Educational magazines were 
established and a voluminous literature appeared. Educa- 
tional commissioners were sent abroad by several states ; 
common school funds were established ; and, above all, some 
progress was made, by the leaders at least, toward an ap- 
preciation of modern methods and the modern spirit in 
education. This latter came largely through a greater knowl- 
edge of and appreciation for the ideas and methods of Pesta- 
lozzi and of the German schools. 

Modern State Systems of Ed^ication. — As with Germany, 



Sociological Tendency in Edncation 737 

there is no single system of education in the United States, 
but an independent system for each state. Yet the outHne 
and general characteristics of these systems are much the 
same. The amalgamation, or development into consistent 
state systems, was an outgrowth of the revival previously dis- 
cussed and of the establishment of the free school idea. The 
final establishment of the idea of free schools in the modern 
sense of the term was of quite recent occurrence. In New 
York the abolition of tuition in public schools was made by 
law in 1867. .In New Jersey and Michigan it did not occur 
until the following year. In Pennsylvania the law was passed 
in 1834, and in Indiana it was embodied in the constitution of 
1851. The free school system, thus developed, is constituted 
as follows : In every state the system of elementary schools 
offers instruction for seven, eight, or nine years, from the fifth 
or sixth year of age. In most states a secondary or high school 
course provides instruction for three or four additional years. 
In all except a few of the extreme eastern commonwealths, 
state universities offering free tuition to all, or to all from 
within the state, are to be found. In only a few states are the 
local communities compelled by law to furnish high schools 
or to provide in neighboring schools for all children who 
desire the advantages of a secondary school. Varying de- 
grees of unification among these parts of the school system 
or in the administration of any particular part of it, as that 
of the elementary schools, exist. The same forces that 
worked toward the development of this system now work 
for the closer unification in administration. First among 
these is the influence of the general government exerted 
through the very generous gifts which constitute a bond of 
interest for all institutions that participate in the privileges. 
Thus since 1785 the government has given to the common 
school system 78,659,439 acres of land, valued at about one 
hundred milHon dollars, and for agricultural educational insti- 
tutions an annual endowment which capitalized would amount 

3B 



jTfS History of Education 

to a sum equal to the former one. A second factor is the 
influence exerted by the state government through the dis- 
tribution of the revenue derived from common school funds, 
in most cases those growing out of the gifts of land from 
the general government and of the funds from state taxa- 
tion. Such distribution has usually been so conducted as to 
call forth a greater effort of the local community in the 
matter of local taxes and to maintain higher standards of 
teaching efficiency than mere local control would have 
secured. The influence of state universities as the culmina- 
tion of the public school system has been a yet further cause 
of unification. Undoubtedly the greater influence resulting 
from the building up of these state systems of public 
schools has been the education of the people themselves to 
a belief in the efficacy of education as a solution for many 
social problems, in the necessity of education as a basis of 
political stability and economic progress, and to a dependence 
upon education as the chief means of social and national 
progress ; in other words, to an acceptance of the socio- 
logical conception of education. Along with this has devel- 
oped a willingness to tax themselves heavily for the most 
general support of the public schools and a consequent 
tendency to greater centralization of administration and 
supervision as a means to greater efficiency. During the 
earlier part of the century there prevailed the idea that 
free schooling was a matter of charity and that it was 
pauperizing in its effect. Although that prejudice has dis- 
appeared with the growth of the free school system, there 
yet remains to be thoroughly inculcated the idea that for the 
welfare of the group as well as of the individual, the state may 
and should compel the attendance of every child for a period 
of six or eight full years. A further development of compul- 
sory attendance laws, which have nowhere reached the stage 
of efificiency found in the leading European nations ; a better 
preparation of teachers and a better supervision of their work ; 



Sociological Tendency in Edncatio^i 739 

a perfecting of the process of instruction and of the technique 
of instruction that these new ideas may be realized — such 
are the lines of development open to the public school system 
of the present. 

THE INDUSTRIAL TENDENCY. — The politico-economic 
tendency until very recently has been dominantly political ; 
it is now becoming dominantly economic. In order to under- 
stand one of the most prominent characteristics of present 
educational activities, this fact needs some further explanation. 
The agreement of the scientific and the sociological move- 
ment in their earlier effects on education has been mentioned. 
The fact that the basis for this early sociological movement 
was chiefly political and military can be illustrated by this one 
series of facts : with the exception of the school in connection 
with the royal mines at Freiburg, Saxony, the first institution 
for the higher education in engineering and other scientific 
lines was the Austrian Military School at Vienna, established 
by Maria Theresa in 1747 ; the French monarch followed with 
the school at Menzieres within a year or two ; and Frederick 
the Great established ?l Ritter-Acadeniie of a similar character 
in 1764. The first school for scientific and engineering instruc- 
tion in our own country was at West Point (1802). The first 
technical instruction of a public character in England was 
the outgrowth of the training of naval and military officers, 
and then not until the middle of the nineteenth century. 

Until recently the training for citizenship that has always 
been assigned as a chief function of state systems of schools 
has been along political and social lines. The aim of educa- 
tion was to prepare the individual to exercise the right of 
suffrage intelligently, to perform the duties of citizenship 
fully and honestly, to discharge the duties of office satis- 
factorily. At least in our own country, with its democratic 
social structure, the emphasis in public education has been 
largely from this point of view. For several decades past in 



740 History of Education 

Europe, and in recent times in our own country, a new inter- 
pretation of education for citizenship is being given. It is 
that education is to make the individual a productive social 
unit economically and hence a valuable citizen. Especially 
in continental Europe, above all in Germany, has this tendency 
been long emphasized. The commercial and industrial ad- 
vance, and that means the political and social advance, of the 
various nations during the past half century, has been in 
very vital relationship to their educational advance. England 
and America have just awakened to this fact; hence many 
radical changes are now being proposed, or even actually 
introduced into. school work. The demand for education for 
citizenship has been chiefly met until the last decade by the 
introduction of the study of history, civics, and economics into 
the school, the inculcation of patriotism by various forms of 
exercises and by the insistence upon the moral aim of public 
school work. Within the last few years the same ideas have 
resulted in a demand for an economic training of the most 
practical kind and for the actual introduction of industrial 
training into the school curriculum. Especially, in our large 
urban communities, with great numbers of foreign emigrants, 
is it recognized that this is one of the first essentials of good 
citizenship, and that it must become a function of the school. 
Some explanation of this change, as found in social con- 
ditions, needs to be sought for. Since the opening of the 
eighteenth century all wars, formerly produced by religious 
or purely political conditions, have been at basis economic. 
Within the present century most treaties and most inter- 
national relations have been determined by economic condi- 
tions. The great need for national and colonial expansion, 
the dominant motives of nations at present, is caused by 
economic conditions ; the power, the stability, the influence 
of a nation depends upon its economic status. The rivalry 
between nations at the present is predominantly an eco- 
nomic one. The one quahfication of good citizenship that 



Sociological Tendency in Education 741 

is coming to take precedence over all others is economic pro- 
ductiveness. The wealth of nations and the per capita 
wealth of citizens has increased tremendously in recent times. 
The economic productiveness of individuals has increased in 
a similar way. The training in this productive power has, 
however, been left for the most part to individual initiative. 
This is especially true in our own country. Here the great 
demand was that things should be done quickly; in the over- 
coming of great obstacles the thing that was demanded was 
rapidity and ultimate success. Material has been so cheap, 
the forces of nature so generously bestowed, that in almost 
every case initiative, ingenuity, industry, were the only 
requisites. Economy in other respects was no saving. As 
is evidenced by the rebuilding of railway lines and of larger 
manufacturing plants, by the rejection of machinery and often 
of entire plants not worn out but simply out of date, by the 
relegation of old inventions to the rear, by the increasing 
demand for young men with scientific training in place of old 
men with practical experience only, — all this is now being 
changed. The one thing that rival nations, rival regions, 
rival firms, are now coming to rely upon as an offset or a 
means of equalization to climatic conditions, racial character- 
istics, cost of living, cost of raw material, is specialization in 
economic, technical, and commercial education. 

On account of the greater intensity of this industrial rivalry, 
most European countries have responded more immediately 
to this new demand than have we in America. Of all nations 
France has made most radical changes in this respect. Agri- 
cultural instruction is given in every rural school, manual or 
technical training in every urban school. Needlework, cook- 
ing, horticulture, and in localities special technical subjects of 
local interest are taught. School museums, school gardens, 
school libraries, are more generally provided than in any other 
country, in the endeavor to relate the school immediately to 
practical life. In England among the subjects for which 



742 History of Education 

payment is made by the government and which are quite gen- 
erally adopted are cooking, sewing, manual training. Other 
subjects not so generally incorporated, but still subsidized, 
are domestic economy, laundry work, dairy work, cottage 
gardening, and "suitable occupations" adapted to particular 
localities. The same variation in the special subjects adopted 
occurs in English schools that does in American schools. 
Dutch schools include instruction in dairying and various 
local industries. The Swiss provide, either in the elementary 
schools or in supplementary schools, for technical training 
in every one of the industries peculiar to their country. In 
Germany the tendency to introduce technical subjects into 
the elementary grades has not been so general. Needlework 
has been generally accepted ; manual training less so. 

But in Germany this tendency is seen at its best in the 
continuation schools, night schools, and various types of 
secondary technical and trade schools of the greatest variety, 
now to be mentioned. It is in technical instruction in higher 
fields that most progress has been made of recent years. 
These are in addition to and even of a more practical kind 
than those engineering schools, chiefly of collegiate and uni- 
versity grade for professional training, that have been re- 
ferred to previously. Technical schools, training for almost 
all lines of industry and trade, have followed. Among these 
are schools of design, of textile weaving, of pottery making 
and design, of dyeing, and of all forms of practical chemistry. 
Of a more general character are those schools (the Baiige- 
werkescJuileti) that admit students of practical experience to 
courses dealing with the principles and practices of building 
construction, the nature of materials, mechanical and free- 
hand drawing, modeling, science, mathematics, etc. Many 
different types of these schools exist in all continental Euro- 
pean states, but most numerously in Germany and Austria, 
and all are supported by the state. Some give direct training 
in the \x?^^^'s>{FacJiscJuileii). Less technical are the industrial 



Sociological Tejidency in Education 743 

schools {IndustriescJmlen and Gczverbeschideri). The indus- 
trial and applied art schools {^Kinistgewerbeschnlen), and more 
important still the continuation schools {Fortbildu7igschulen\ 
continue the work of the elementary school along all these 
practical lines. School sessions are held on week days, on 
Sundays and on evenings. Allied to these are the commer- 
cial schools of secondary and even university grade. In this 
respect, as in all others, Germany, with its schools at Cologne, 
Munich and other places, was first in the field and ever in 
the lead. Except in the cases of the scientific or engineering 
schools in connection with the leading universities and a few 
technical and trade schools, usually of secondary grade and 
always under private auspices, little has been done in the 
United States. Great Britain, on account of the immediate 
character of this industrial competition with the German 
countries, has responded much more quickly, and has a 
very extensive system of industrial and trade schools or 
classes for evening instruction. 

In the United States progress is being made along two 
lines ; one is the direct estabhshment of industrial schools, 
which will soon be incorporated in the work of the public 
schools, at least as evening schools ; the other is in the modi- 
fied character of the manual training instruction so generally 
given. This work, introduced quite generally since 1885, 
first in the secondary schools of our larger cities and recently 
in the elementary grades of many of them, was first largely a 
training in processes of construction, analyzed into its parts. 
Its object for the most part was to train the senses and to 
develop the power to work with objective material. More 
recently still there prevails the idea of Sloyd work, appealing 
to the interests of the child through the construction of a 
completed object and of something useful or ornamental in 
the home. But the present tendency seems to be definitely 
toward training in trade and craft processes. 

Thus through the subject of nature study, study of agri- 



744 History of Education 

culture, sewing, manual training in the grades ; through com- 
mercial high schools, trade schools as yet supported by 
philanthropic enterprise, commercial and industrial courses 
in high schools, evening schools, manual training high 
schools, in the secondary field ; through colleges of commerce 
and schools of applied sciences, either initiated or projected 
in the higher fields, the educational system of the United 
States is responding to this most recent social demand upon 
education which has already such remarkable response in 
European countries. 

Thus is the politico-economic tendency shifting from the 
political to the economic basis in education. The significance 
of the Froebelian philosophy of education in placing such 
industrial and constructive work on a rational pedagogical 
basis has been mentioned (pp. 640, 659). This offers the 
chief explanation of the fact that it is the Froebelian idea of 
education that is coming to prevail in the present. 

REFERENCES 

General Sociological Discussio7i, etc. 

Davidson, Education as World Building, in Ed. Rev., Vol. 20, p. 325. 
Guyau, Education and Heredity. 

Howerth, Edtication and Evolutian^ in Ed. Rev., Vols. 23, 24. 
Home, Principles of Education, Chs. IV, V. (New York, 1904.) 
Henderson, y^i?r^(?;z on Public Education. (New York, 1890.) 
Jenks, Education for Citizenship. Nat. Herbart. Society, 1896. 
Mackenzie, Aft Introduction to Social Philosophy. (New York, 1890.) 
Ross, Social Control, Ch. XIV. (New York, 1901.) 
Vincent, The Social Mind and Educatioft. (New York, 1897.) 
Ward, Dynamic Sociology, Vol. II, Chs. X-XIV. (New York, 1883.) 
Ware, Educational Foundations of Trade and Industry. (New York, 
1901.) 

Development of School Systems. 
Balfour, Educational Systems of Great Britain and Ireland. (Oxford, 

I903') 
Barnard. German Teachers and Educators. 



Sociological Tendency in Edttcation 745 

Blackmar, History of Federal and State Aid to Higher Education in the 

United States. (United States Bureau of Education, 1890.) 
Brown, Making of our Middle Schools. 
Butler, Education in the United States. (Albany, 1900.) 
Hinsdale, Horace Mann. (New York, 1898.) 
Hughes, The Making of a Citizen. (New York, 1902.) 
Martin, Evolution of the Massachusetts State School Syste7n. (New York, 

1901.) 
Palmer, The New York Ptiblic Schools. (New York, 1905.) 
Randall, History of Common School System of State of New York. (New 

York, 1873.) 
Report of the Moseley Educational Commission to the United States. 

(London, 1904.) 
Russell, Gerrnan Higher Schools. 
Seeley, German School System. (New York, 1896.) 
United States Bureau of Education, Annual Reports^ see general index 

and educational bibliographies. 
Wightman, Annals of the Primary Schools. (Boston, i860.) 

For special subjects of industrial education, new types of schools, etc., 
see magazine literature and encyclopedic articles. 

TOPICS FOR FURTHER INVESTIGATION 

1. What in detail are the sociological aspects of the educational theory 
of Pestalozzi as discoverable in his writings? Of Herbart? Of Froebel? 

2. To what extent does Pestalozzi's practical work possess direct socio- 
logical significance? Herbart's? Froebel's? 

3. To what extent does the sociological conception of education find 
expression in the educational writings of Kant? Of Fichte? Of Rosen- 
kranz ? 

4. What is Herbert Spencer's conception of history and to what extent 
is it correct? To what extent has the writing of text-books and of histori- 
cal treatises been modified in accordance with these ideas? 

5. What were the educational ideas of Franklin? Of Washington? 
Of Jefferson ? Of Madison ? 

6. To what extent did these men or any one of them participate in the 
educational activities of his times? 

7. Is the definition of education in terms of citizenship sufficient? 

8. State more in detail the conception of education given in the socio- 
logical writings of Comte. Of Ward. Of Spencer. Of Mackenzie. Of 
Vincent. 



746 History of Education 

9. Give in outline the substance of the school laws of Prussia of 1763 
and of 1790. What has been added since? 

10. What concrete educational results were due to the efforts of Freder- 
ick the Great? Of Maria Theresa? Of Duke Ernst of Gotha-Altenburg? 
Of the French Revolutionary Conventions? 

11. What is the history and what the present success of compulsory 
education in Prussia? In the United States? 

12. Trace out in any given locality the work of the various school 
societies named, or of any one of them. 

13. Give an outline of the Lancasterian school movement in the United 
States. Of the Fellenberg movement. Of the Infant school movement. 

14. To what extent was the early Sunday school movement in England 
or in the United States related to secular education? 

15. Describe the educational methods of the Lancasterian schools. Of 
the Fellenberg schools. Of the Infant schools. 

16. Trace the development of the idea of free schools in any one 
American commonwealth. 



CHAPTER XIV 

CONCLUSION : THE PRESENT ECLECTIC TENDENCY 

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS.— The educational thought 
of the present seeks to summarize these movements of the 
recent past and to rearrange and relate the essential principles 
of each in one harmonious whole. The educational activity of 
the present seeks the same harmony as it reduces these prin- 
ciples to practical schoolroom procedure. All the varieties 
of experimentation, all of the frequent changes in subject- 
matter, in method, in organization, while they bring their evils 
and appear as curious phenomena to conservative educators 
of more stable societies, have yet this significance : they are 
recognitions that new principles have been formulated, new 
truths recognized, and that practice controlled by tradition 
or by principles derived from a partial view alone must be 
readjusted in closer accord with the new truths derived from 
the ever expanding knowledge of life and of nature. 

FUSION OF PSYCHOLOGICAL, SCIENTIFIC, AND SOCIO- 
LOGICAL TENDENCIES. — To this eclectic view of education 
the three tendencies in the educational thought of the eigh- 
teenth and nineteenth centuries have contributed. In the main 
the psychological contributions have related to method ; the 
scientific to subject-matter ; the sociological to a broader aim 
and a better institutional machinery. And yet each move- 
ment has exerted some influence on method, on purpose, 
on organization and on subject-matter. The most promi- 
nent contributions of these movements can be summarized 

747 



748 History of Education 

in a few sentences. From Rousseau came the idea that 
education is life, that it must center in the child and that it 
must find its end in the individual and in each particular stage 
of his life. From Pestalozzi came the idea that efficient edu- 
cational work depends upon an actual knowledge of the child 
and a genuine sympathy for him ; that education is a growth 
from within, not a series of accretions from without ; that this 
is the result of the experiences or activities of the child ; conse- 
quently, that objects not symbols must form the basis of the 
process of instruction ; that sense perception, not processes 
of memory, form the basis of early training. From Herbart 
came the idea of a scientific process of instruction; a scien- 
tific basis for the organization of the curriculum ; and the idea 
of character as the aim of instruction, tobe reached scientifically 
through the use of method and curriculum as defined. From 
Froebel came the true conception of the nature of the child ; 
the correct interpretation of the starting point of education in 
the child's tendency to activity; the true interpretation of the 
curriculum as the representation to the child of the epitome 
of the world's experience or of the culture inheritance of the 
race; and in general the first, and as yet the most complete, 
application of the theory of evolution to the problem of educa- 
tion. From the scientific tendency came the insistence upon 
a revision of the idea of a liberal education ; a new definition 
of the culture demanded by present life ; and the insistence 
stronger than ever when reenforced by the sociological 
view, that industrial, technical, and professional training be 
introduced into every stage of education and that it all be 
made to contribute to the development of the free man, — 
the fully developed citizen. From the sociological tendency 
came the commonly accepted belief that education is the 
process of development of society; that its aim is to produce 
good citizens ; that this is accomplished through the fullest 
development of personality in the individual ; that this de- 
velopment of personal ability and character must fit the 



The Present Eclectic Tendency 749 

individual for citizenship, for life in institutions and for some 
form of productive participation in present social activities ; 
in a word, that one must learn to serve himself by serving 
others. 

CURRENT EDUCATIONAL TENDENCIES. — A more profit- 
able and more concrete summary of the past can be made in 
terms of present tendencies. Most evident of all to the 
teacher are the many changes now being made in the curricu- 
lum, in the attempt to make it expressive of present social 
activities and aspirations. Such changes are chiefly an out- 
growth of the sociological tendency. Following this there is 
the effort toward making educational method and the pro- 
cedure of instruction more definite, more scientific, and more 
universally followed. This requires the farther preHminary 
training of teachers and continuous professional study by 
the teacher and oversight by the supervisor throughout the 
teaching experience. This, above all, is the result of the psy- 
chological tendency. Connected with this change is the cor- 
related tendency to closer articalation of subjects within the 
curriculum and of the ^various types of schools within the 
system. This is a result of the recognition of the significance 
of education as a social process, of the more scientific char- 
acter of schoolroom work, and of the more general attention 
to administration and the perfection of institutions. Hence 
there is at present a combination of psychological, scientific, 
and sociological influences. 

The growing centralization in school administration and^ 
the more thorough and scientific school supervision are the 
outcome of new economic conditions bringing about centrali- 
zation in all lines of social activities and a specialization in / 
all lines of work. The latest phase of this tendency to 
specialization is revealed in all the professions, among them 
that of teaching. This results in another tendency, — the 
recognition of teaching as a vocation and as a profession 



750 History of Educatio7i 

with higher and more definitely recognized standards. This 
recognition depends primarily upon two conditions ; namely, 
the demands for higher qualifications by those who employ 
teachers, and the incorporation of instruction in education 
and training in teaching into the professional work and 
cultural investigations of higher institutions of learning. 

One of the present tendencies gives rise to, as well as 
solves, an important educational problem. The complete 
secularization of schools has led to the complete exclusion of 
religious elements in public education, and the very general 
exclusion of the study or even the use of the Bible and all 
religious Hterature. Thus thematerial that a few generations 
ago furnished the sole content of elementary education is now 
entirely excluded and a problem of very great importance — 
that of rehgious education — is presented. Little or no at- 
tempt at solution is being made and little interest aroused. 
The problem for the teacher comes to be quite similar to that 
formulated by the Greek philosophers, to produce character 
through an education that is dorainantly rational and that 
excludes all recognition of the traditional religious element. 
It does not assist in solving the problem, to deny that as a 
people through our schools we have definitely rejected re- 
vealed religion as a basis for morality and seek to find a 
sufficient basis in the development of rationality in the child. 
One most important phase of education is left to the Church 
and the home, neither of which is doing much to meet the 
demand. 

This tendency exists along with another, which might 
seem to be contradictory, — the expansion of the scope of 
school work. Much of the work recently included within 
the scope of schoolroom instruction is yet inadequately 
organized and hence indifferently presented. Unsatisfactory 
results follow. But undoubtedly the need is simply for more 
experience. What new social conditions have demanded, 
new school conditions must supply. The work of the school 



The Present Eclectic Tendency 751 

can no longer be restricted to the merest rudiments or instru- 
ments of learning ; what is now demanded are the rudiments 
of living, the instruments needed for successful life in com- 
plex modern civilization. The most prominent phase of this 
tendency of the present is the incorporation of the industrial 
element in all school work. This argues a radical reshaping 
of our idea of education as well as of the instructing process. 
Education is to be broader, schoolroom instruction more 
helpful, more immediately practical, more directly related to 
conduct, and hence more moral. Whether this is a great 
concession to materialism or not, cannot be discussed here ; 
whether it is, in any individual case, depends for the most 
part on the teacher. This new tendency which bids fair to 
increase far beyond present experience is wholly in answer 
to new social demands. And society must accompany these 
demands with a corresponding service, — liberality in the 
support of education greater than ever shown before. The 
expenditures for education in the present are unprecedented ; 
but they are not to be a precedent for the future ; the tend- 
ency is toward much greater expenditures in the future. 
And if much more is given, much more will be required. 

Thus the movements characteristic of the past, which we 
have sketched in greater detail, are working themselves out 
in these tendencies of the present. 

HARMONIZATION OF INTEREST AND EFFORT. — The 

eclectic character of present educational thought and practice 
is shown not only by the fusion of the psychological, scientific, 
and sociological views of education, but also by the endeavor 
made to unify in theory and in schoolroom procedure the 
elements of interest and effort. The long period of peace, 
during which the conception of education as effort or as a 
discipline prevailed, was succeeded by a period of conflict 
between the idea of education as discipline and the idea of 
education as a natural process determined wholly by the 



752 History of Edzuation 

interests of the child. Both practical experience and further 
Jieoretical investigation are showing that the interpretation 
of education from the point of view of interest is as partial 
as the old interpretation of education as discipline ; conse- 
quently the present tendency is one of reconcihation, of har- 
monization of interest and effort, as the basis of educational 
practice. The period of conflict occupied the second half of 
the eighteenth and practically all of the nineteenth century. 
The period of reconciliation of the two conceptions in our 
own country is practically that of the present generation. 

Interest is essential as the starting point of the educative 
process ; effort is essential as its outcome. The purpose of 
appealing to the interest of the child is to lead him to the 
point where he will put forth effort to master the unsolved 
problems, the undetermined relationships of his environment, 
whether of the schoolroom or of life. The object of the old 
education of effort was to develop in the child the power of 
voluntary attention, of application, of strength of will, that 
would enable him to overcome the obstacles or to accomplish 
the tasks of each day's experience. The object of the new 
education of reconciliation is to reach the same end through 
immediate appeal to spontaneous attention and to the native 
interests of the child. The old, like Aristotle's solution 
(p. 152), was valid only for the comparatively few who were 
of such native ability as to profit by the training ; the new, by 
building upon the essentials of human nature itself, seeks to 
secure that development for all. In both, the purpose is to 
produce that motivation in moral judgment and that power 
of accomplishment in action, the combination of which is 
character. The aim of the new, no less than of the old, is to 
produce "that making in the selection of the good and the 
rejection of the evil which we call character" (p. 631). 

Neither interest nor effort is an end in itself ; neither inter- 
est nor effort alone is a sufficient guide to the educative 
process. Interest is the conditioji of mind arising out of the 



The Present Eclectic Tendency 753 

child's own powers and needs in response to stimuli from his 
environment; effort is the other side of the same situation 
and represents the discharge in response to the stimuli, — a 
response that calls for a greater expenditure of energy than 
can be sustained by the original exciting interest. What is 
aimed at in education through a use of or combination of 
both interest and effort is the production of a type of mind, 
or rather of the whole being or nature of an individual, that 
includes power of rational insight, of deliberation, of inde- 
pendence of judgment, of firmness of decision, and of effective 
action. To secure this, both interest and effort must be de- 
pended upon or called forth in the educative process. 

The problem of the schoolroom, then, is neither by author- 
ity to hold the child to the mastery of certain tasks which 
are uninteresting in themselves and from which his attention 
is withdrawn the moment the external pressure is removed, 
and thus to develop will power and moral character ; nor, on 
the other hand, is it the work of the school so to surround 
the needed activities or learning processes with factitious 
interests as to sugar coat the pills of schoolroom tasks. The 
harmonization of the problem of effort and interest consists in 
so relating the tasks of the schoolroom to the real life and 
activities of the child, by drawing them directly from the life 
activities of the child and of society, that he grows into his 
fuller adult self through assimilation into his own personality 
of that which is, and which he recognizes to be, an essen- 
tial part of the hfe of society around him. This activity is 
effort ; interest consists in arousing in the child the realiza- 
tion of its vital relation to his own life. Personality is 
expanded and character developed as this possible relation- 
ship is developed into a normal and an abiding reality in the 
life of the individual. 

THE MEANING OF EDUCATION, as conceived in the 
present, is found in this harmonization of interest and effort. 
3C 



754 History of Education 

This is but another attempt to solve the problem of the 
individual and of society, which, as we have seen, has been 
the educational problem as it has been the ethical problem, 
from the beginning of human life. How is the individual 
to be educated so as to secure the full development of per- 
sonality and at the same time preserve the stability of insti- 
tutional life and assist in its evolution to a higher state ? 
It is the old problem of relating the one and the many ; of 
securing individual liberty and social justice. Interest and 
effort give in modern form Aristotle's problem of well-being 
and well-doing. Interest, representing the emphasis or the 
factor of individualism, is an outgrowth of the naturalistic 
movement of the eighteenth century ; the education of effort 
is the survival in conservative circles of the old education of 
authority expressive of the religious and social views preva- 
lent since the Reformation period. These views have sur- 
vived longest in educational institutions that are controlled 
by religious denominations or by certain dominant classes in 
society, as in the English public schools and universities. 

The definitions of education throughout this earlier period 
were given in terms of training for institutional or social life 
(Chapter IX). The definitions of education acceptable to the 
new thought of the nineteenth centur}^ were those couched in 
terms of individual development, as that of Pestalozzi's 
(Chapter XI). 

The meaning of education, as at present conceived, is 
found in the attempt to combine and to balance these two 
elements of individual rights and social duties, of personal 
development and social service. The meaning of education 
in the present finds its whole significance in this very process 
of relating the individual to society, so as to secure develop- 
ment of personality and social welfare. It is true that for 
the last two decades the tendency in thought, in reaction to 
the extreme emphasis on interest and on individualism, has 
been to stress the social factor. Education has been defined 



The Present Eclectic Tendency 755 

as preparation for citizenship, as adjustment to society, as 
preparation for life in institutions, as the acquisition of the 
racial inheritance. 

But definitions more acceptable to present thought seek to 
combine both factors and to find a harmonization of them in 
the nature of the educational process. Thus Professor James, 
from the psychological and hence individualistic point of view, 
defines education as "the organization of acquired habits of 
action such as will fit the individual to his physical and 
social environment." President Butler's view emphasizes the 
sociological view but gives both elements. It is that edu- 
cation is the "gradual adjustment of the individual to the 
spiritual possessions of the race." These factors are more 
closely related in Professor Home's definition, which clearly 
reveals this eclectic tendency as including the psychological, 
the scientific, and the sociological elements in our present 
thought of education. This definition is as follows : " Edu- 
cation is the superior adjustment of a physically and men- 
tally developed conscious human being to his intellectual, 
emotional, and volitional environment." The one who has 
done more than any one else to elaborate this eclectic view of 
education that harmonizes the conflicting ideas of the old 
tendencies and in whose writings a fuller presentation of 
many of these points stated will be found, is Professor John 
Dewey. He defines education as " the process of remaking 
experience, giving it a more socialized value through increased 
individual experience, by giving the individual better control 
over his own powers." Here both individual and social 
factors are emphasized and harmonized. From whatever 
interest, whether practical or theoretical, or from whatever 
line of investigation the problem of education is now ap- 
proached, its meaning is given in some terms of this harmon- 
ization of social and individual factors. It is the process of 
conforming the individual to the given social standard or type 
in such a manner that his inherent capacities are developed, 



756 History of Education 

his greatest usefulness and happiness obtained, and, at the 
same time, the highest welfare of society is conserved. 

THE CURRICULUM.— As interpreted from the point of view 
of this new meaning of education, the curriculum is no longer 
a sacred inheritance, possessing absolute and permanent valid- 
ity, the contents of which the child must master in order to 
attain to an education and to be admitted to the charmed 
circle of the cultured. The curriculum becomes but the 
epitomized representation to the child of this cultural inheri- 
tance of the race, — of those products of human experience 
which yet enter into the higher and better life of man, and 
which the present generation esteems to be of value to the 
individual and of worth to society as a whole. Such an 
appraisement of the values of life must change from genera- 
tion to generation, if there is to be progress in life ; if life 
in the present has any value in itself beyond mere existence, 
culture cannot be the same for the twentieth century that it 
was for the eighteenth. The formal statement of the ele- 
ments of character must remain much the same ; the concrete 
content must vary as life varies. The curriculum must 
present to the child in idealized form, present life, pres- 
ent social activities, present ethical aspirations, present 
appreciation of the cultural value of the past. Only as a 
part of present life, that is only as it touches the present 
life of the child through the life of society, can it call forth 
that interest which is essential to the educative process. 
Hence as a result of the historical studies we have pur- 
sued, it appears that the curriculum must be adjusted con- 
stantly, though very gradually, ""io as to reorganize the old 
culture material and to include the new. The curriculum 
is the child's introduction to life, as schooling is the prepa- 
ration for it. The curriculum, then, must really introduce 
to life as it is and as it should be ; the school should actually 
prepare. 



Source Book of the History of 
Education 

FOR THE GREEK AND ROMAN PERIOD 

By PAUL MONROE, Ph.D. 

Adjunct Professor of the History of Education 
Teachers College, Columbia University 

Cloth i2mo $2.25 net 

"I have decided to recommend it to my class in the History of Educa- 
tion as the basis of their work for this fall term. I regard the material as 
very Carefully and judiciously selected — by far the best book of extracts 
with which I am acquainted." 

— Dr. Wm. J. Taylor, 

Lecturer on the History of Education, 

Yale University. 



A Modern School 

By PAUL H. HANUS 

Professor of the History and Art of Teaching, Harvard University 
Author of " Educational Aims and Educational Values," etc. 

$1.25 net 

The chapters of which this volume consists, except the last, deal with 
various phases of one central theme : the scope and aims of a modern 
school, and the conditions essential to its highest efficiency. The last 
chapter offers some testimony on the working of the elective system, — a 
comemporary question of great importance to both schools and colleges, 
— but the testimony offered pertains only to the college. The first chapter 
deals specifically with the secondary school; and in it the author has 
endeavored to extend and strengthen certain conceptions set furth in his 
earlier book. The next seven chapters contain a fuller treatment of cer- 
tain topics than was appropriate or expedient in the first chapter, and 
discuss the internal and external conditions essential to a high degree oi 
success in the work of any school. 



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Educational Aims and 

Educational Values 

By PAUL H. HANUS 

Assistant Professor of the History and Art of Teaching, 
Harvard University 

Cloth i2mo $1.25 

" Professor Hanus has given us a book which will aid in the develop, 
ment of a large and hopeful view of secondary education; it is a book 
which should be widely read." — School Journal. 

" It seems to be a general opinion that Professor Hanus has written 
the most valuable book on the science of teaching which has appeared in 
a decade." — School Weekly. 



The Meaning of Education 

WITH OTHER ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES 

By NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER 

Columbia University 

Cloth i2mo $1.00 

" I do not recall any recent discussion of educational questions which 
has seemed to me so adequate in knowledge and so full of genuine insight. 
I like the frankness, the honesty, and the courage of the papers immensely " 

— Hamilton W. Mabie. 

"A volume which will be eagerly sought and thoroughly enjoyed. It 
is clear, strong, and wholesome." 

— State Supt. Charles R. Skinner, Albany, N. Y. 



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